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| Greetings Humans! |
Sent to Earth on a
great mission, Nyhtwulf appeared atop a high skyscraper in downtown New York
City. He gazed in awe and wonder at the sight below. An
ocean of lights glittered and blinked all around. Cars and trucks were starting
to be cleared from accidents, creating rivers of moving light everywhere he
looked. A hustle and bustle of sounds
filled his sensitive ears so much that he had to take pause to get accustomed
to it all. He could feel the emotions of masses of people in combinations of
fear, worry and awe. It would take him a while to get used to filtering out so
many minds. It was when he found the emotions of hope that they truly caught
his attention. These hopes were for other humans, humans with extraordinary
abilities. As he listened, he was amazed to discover that mention of some such
powers rivaled his own.
“I wonder if I can find
any of these humans? Maybe they could be of help,” Nyhtwulf thought, “What
wonders there are here!”
He snapped out of his
thoughts at the thrumming sound of a police helicopter flying low over the
city. Helicopters were about the only machines of flight that could be used
with the darkness and they dared not fly too high. Nyhtwulf marveled at the
flying machine and noted their uniforms. If these were people of authority,
maybe they could give him some information?
Nyhtwulf flew through
the darkness, nearly invisible, towards the helicopter. Nyhtwulf had a supernatural
ability in language. Just from sensing the thoughts of humans he could speak
their language. Along with that, an ability of Nyhtwulf’s species is to be
intangible, so able to move through solid structures. It didn’t take long for
Nyhtwulf to realize his first approach may not have been such a good idea. From
in the cockpit of the helicopter, Nyhtwulf’s head and shoulders rose through
the control panel and he attempted to say “Greetings!”
To Nyhtwulf’s surprised
ears and those of the shocked officers, all they heard was, “GLARGARGLE!”
The two police officers
screamed and the helicopter swerved away, leaving a confused Nyhtwulf hovering
in the air. The tail blade of the helicopter shattered against a nearby
building and the machine spun out of control. Nyhtwulf saw the helicopter
spiraling towards the street below with multitudes of humans. Despite his
confusion and the fact that this was not what he intended, Nyhtwulf dove after
the helicopter. Becoming solid, he grabbed onto the tail of the machine and
steadied its flight. People screamed and scattered as Nyhtwulf guided the
helicopter to the ground. The pilots hurried to turn off the engines as soon as
they were on the ground and Nyhtwulf rushed to see if they were okay. Before
Nyhtwulf could ask anything, one of the officers jumped out with a gun drawn
and started shooting. The bullets went through Nyhtwulf harmlessly, but he
could see that there would be no talking to this human. Nyhtwulf flew back up
into the darkness where he couldn’t be seen.
“What just happened?”
he thought, “Perhaps I scared them too much. I should try someone in another
location. And I hope I can talk this time; that was very strange indeed.”
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| What they saw |
Nyhtwulf flew over the
buildings in search of someone else he might approach. A few blocks away he
found another police officer and a group of people. This time he flew down
gently and tried his best not to startle them.
“Excuse me, humans,”
Nyhtwulf tried to say, but all they all heard was, “ECHELBLARGLAAAAR!”
All of the people
screamed and ran frantically in all directions. That was when Nyhtwulf felt
something terrible from their minds. Not only could he not speak to them, but
they were seeing him in a far more nightmarish visage. They saw Nyhtwulf
leaping to attack them with ferocity, an illusion.
“A spell as has been
cast on me!” Nyhtwulf realized as he flew back to the rooftops, “I mustn’t let
anyone see me until I can figure out what to do about this!”
*******
Despite the reasons he locked himself away, it felt
good to have his motorcycle under him once again. Larry Peters carried the name
of Blacktide because of a wave of disintegration energy he could emit. His
powers manifested at an early age without warning in Manitoba, Canada. He could
still feel it like yesterday. The sun shone through the white gazebo where they
ate breakfast and kept them all warm. Father snapped the morning newspaper and
mused over an article while mother put some syrup on her son’s pancakes. He
smiled up at mother and she ran her fingers through his hair. He cut a bite
away with his fork and felt a turn in his stomach. Like any child, suddenly
feeling ill, he looked to his mother for help.
“What’s
wrong dear?” She had been so good to him, as nurturing as any mother could be.
“Mommy?”
It was the last word he said to her before it went off. The explosion filled
the area with smoke and made him feel almost deaf. Disintegration works more
with the sound of imploding air followed by silence than an outward crack or
bang. He fell to the ground startled and frightened beyond his 9 years.
When
they found him, they first saw the random pieces of gazebo all around. Tears
streamed down the little boy’s face where he sat next to the disembodied head
of his mother. Parts of them lay about in random order since his disintegration
field worked in such a sporatic way. There was no blood because his energies
cauterized all openings left behind.
The first firefighter followed
his instincts to grab the boy and take him to safety, at the cost of both his hands.
Larry now carried a short range field of disintegrative energy around his body
so long as he was conscious. No one could get close and the rescue crews made
frantic phone calls. It wasn’t long into his suffering, sitting in that mess,
that a man from a government program came.
He looked into the sad, frightened eyes of that little boy,
“I’m
so sorry, son,” and he pulled the pin on what looked like a type of grenade
canister. A fog filled the area and Larry fell unconscious while the man held a
gasmask on himself. Larry awoke in a
laboratory with a parahuman study program. They counseled him on his loss and
studied his powers. Even with all the understanding they gave him, even knowing
it wasn’t his fault, he still sometimes wished that grenade were lethal.
It was in that lab that they discovered he couldn’t affect gasses or liquids. They also discovered that he could cause any non-living object to implode. At mental command, he could also release that hold and a devastating explosion would occur. This discovery only served to make Larry fear his powers that much more. When he was seventeen, they were making him practice his implosion power and there was an accident that killed two laboratory workers. Larry ran away through a hole in the wall and never turned back. In his wanderings, sought by the law, he ran across a street gang and started hanging out with them in underground places. They had him use his powers for some small time breaking and entering, but that didn‘t last. With lives on his shoulders, he got himself a motorcycle and took to the road.
It was in that lab that they discovered he couldn’t affect gasses or liquids. They also discovered that he could cause any non-living object to implode. At mental command, he could also release that hold and a devastating explosion would occur. This discovery only served to make Larry fear his powers that much more. When he was seventeen, they were making him practice his implosion power and there was an accident that killed two laboratory workers. Larry ran away through a hole in the wall and never turned back. In his wanderings, sought by the law, he ran across a street gang and started hanging out with them in underground places. They had him use his powers for some small time breaking and entering, but that didn‘t last. With lives on his shoulders, he got himself a motorcycle and took to the road.
Now
he searched the streets of New York for cold blooded killers and wondered how
long it would last? How long before another life is lost or someone is
seriously injured? He rode into the Bronx and sought out some of the harder
districts. In his experience, wicked dealings always start underground. He saw
a black van with heavily tinted windows pull into a warehouse where a large
door pulled down behind it. He parked his bike across the street, attracting
the attention of a couple local thugs. He knew the looks in their eyes as they
approached and picked up an empty beer bottle.
“Yo,
homie, what you gonna do with that?” one of them laughed.
He
held the bottle in his palm at eye level for them to see. With a slight pop,
like the cough of a silencer on a pistol, it dissolved into smoke. A few dusty
sprinkles of glass fell to the ground.
“No
one touches my bike. No one touches me.”
The
two of them walked away murmuring that this one was crazy anyway. Blacktide
knew that they wouldn’t stick around for anything tougher or more dangerous than
them. Blacktide walked calmly across the street and into the shadows between
buildings. He pressed up against the
brick near a window and peeked in. The warehouse had several large crates
inside and a large black man lifted one into the back of the van with less
effort than a sack of groceries. Blacktide wasn’t worried about how big the man
was, he had dealt with people much bigger. Blacktide moved his way down the
dark wall to a doorway. Finding it locked, he made a fist and punched through
the area where the bolt would go into the wall. He disintegrated a fist shaped
hole clear through and door floated open.
Once inside, he immediately found himself behind a few of the large
crates. Stacked two high, they provided complete cover for him. Blacktide used
the position to find out what was in the crates. A slight brush of his fingers
created a large enough hole in the crate that Blacktide could move packing
material around. The crate was filled with the same strange rifles he had seen
pictures of.
“Paydirt,” Blacktide
whispered to himself.
 |
| Railroad, muscle for hire |
Blacktide snuck around
the crates and between them, watching for any sign of the suited attackers.
None of them seemed to be around. The big brute wasn’t next to the van anymore
and it sat with the back doors still open. Cautiously Blacktide approached the
van and noted an office to his right. Maybe the big guy went in there? He
stalked up to the door and peered around the corner as quiet as could be.
Empty. Just an empty chair at a paper cluttered desk. Something struck his
lower back and propelled him through the office door. His power annihilated the
entire doorway and the windows through the other side. Half of a metal support
beam also got erased and he left pock marks across the concrete floor. His back
arched in pain as he writhed there.
“Wow,
that’s a serious power you got there,” the brute said as he stepped through the
path of wreckage. “You must wipe out anything you touch huh? Far out. Good
thing I got these special gloves and boots that protect me from stuff like that.”
To
accent that point, the brute of a man kicked Blacktide and launched him through
another wall. Passing through walls and boxes didn’t hurt, but Blacktide felt a
rib snap with the force of the kick. As Blacktide’s body came to rest on the
concrete again, the brute came stomping after him.
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