@hawkshade: Tessa pushed the black frames of her slightly oversize glasses up her nose as she chewed her lip. She'd been dying to get her hands on some of Arrachtach's tech for the longest time, and judging from what she could see, Richard's attempt at duplication had come close. She articulated the material of the gauntlet and bracer he'd left in front of her, and just as he'd said, it crumbled like ash, contrary to the sturdy appearance.
"Gimme a sec," she muttered as she opened up his laptop and began going through his notes, one eye on the screen, the other scrutinizing the bracer. "That doesn't make sense," she whispered to herself as she typed furiously. His design was spot-on, it should be working. "I think he might have used some form of technoweave embedded within the gauntlets themselves, but I'm not sure. If he kept his notes stored electronically... I could maybe hack them."
The muscular vigilante grinned and patted his battered laptop. "You're in luck. He left hundreds and hundreds of schematics, design specs and notes behind. They weren't even encrypted. I don't think they ever expected this place to be found. Or they wouldn't have left the bitcoins. Oh, not just armor either. There's about a hundred different kinds of custom arrowheads in those servers they left behind. Exploding arrowheads, gas arrowheads, taser arrowheads, the works. I've been thinking about trying to re-work them into something I could throw, a bow is too bulky, but I figured I'd start with the simple stuff first." He nodded to the gauntlet. "Anyway, feel free to take a look at all that stuff."
@grimmwald: You know, the Alaric Foundation is working on cows that are genetically engineered to produce milk with naturally-occurring sedatives in it. We're not quite there yet, but we haven't had a single stampede!
Richard lay in the medical bay, bandages wrapped around his muscular body; abdomen, scalp, bicep and foot. The heart monitor beside him kept steady time as he drifted in and out of a Strigidae meditative trance that accelerated his healing.
He was okay. And that surprised him. On some level he imagined that he would be burning with resentment. Furious that he had been defeated twice by the same man. Failed his mission; twice.
But as he searched his feelings he realized he didn't feel any of those things. Deep down he believed he would have defeated Musa, were it not for Musa's tech and allies. Perhaps it was self-deception but if so, it was a pleasant one.
Moreover the encounter had not been a complete loss. His fingers closed around the trophy he held in his right hand; an Atherium spear.. coated with Musa Bashir's blood.
The Son of the Shogun smiled as he drifted off again. The path was clear before him.
The last few weeks had been a disaster. He had tracked down Musa and been defeated. Failed to replicate Arrachtach's experiments and built a suit of armor, like his mother had worn. Even his entry into the Gothic social scene had been a failure; Richard had walked blindly into a gotcha interview and then swore at the interviewer and stormed out on live TV. Rather than becoming the beloved benefactor of Gothic City his civilian identity (Richard Dmitriev) was now a punchline.
He sighed. Then he stopped feeling sorry for himself and went into the chemistry lab where a spear laid upon a workbench.
Afro-futurism aesthetic. Richard picked it up and twirled it in his hands. Light. Then he tested the edge on a piece of paper. Sharp. But how sharp?
He slid the edge under a microscope left behind by Arrachtach and took a look. Extremely.
Hardness?
The Rockwell Hardness Test was the gold standard in hardness classification from what Richard had read in his nightly science and engineering studies.
He begin. Preload, diamond ball indentor. Major load, eight minutes dwell-time. Elastic recovery test.
Cavitation, zero.
Richard frowned. Classification, super-metal.
Adamantium or vibranium?
There was no industry standard for super-metal identification. He devised a test of his own by calculating density by first measuring mass with a scale and then volume with the displacement test. Mass divided by volume was density. He wrote that down.
Then he walked into the main room and googled the density of vibranium. Doesn't match. Must be adamantium. He searched. It didn't match either.
Huh.
Richard took the spear back into the lab and photographed the grain pattern in the wood. Google image search narrowed it down to a number of African hardwoods. He ordered a book on African hardwoods from Amazon, sent to one of his NYC drop boxes, then returned to the mystery metal.
Hard. Sharp. But what were it's other properties?
A tension strength test followed, then a wear resistance test and then heat resistance. Off the charts in all categories. He wrote everything down in a yellow notebook in case Kellan wanted to read his notes, then duplicated his notes on his battered laptop for personal use.
Wait.
Something didn't make sense in the heat test. Surface temperature was all wrong after that long under a laser. Richard repeated the test. Same result.
He frowned. Then he took it to the cave entrance, climbed the rope later about fifty feet and dropped the spear on the steel platform below. It bounced only once, about six inches. He dropped a comparably sized piece of steel for comparison. It bounced three times, reaching nearly two feet on the first bounce.
Absorption. It absorbs energy. Heat and kinetic both.
But it wasn't vibranium.
Something new. New was unique. New could be isolated. Tracked.
The Son of the Shogun smirked as he climbed down the ladder and picked up the Atherium spear. He wrote 'Metal X' in his notebook and went back to the lab.
Time to prepare for their next battle. He would get evenjustice.
The Shogun's only son leaned against a steel worktable in the Cave's workshop, muscular arms crossed over the white t-shirt stretched over his broad chest. Overhead a halogen light cast the metal spartan metal platform in it's harsh glare. He had called a meeting of the Shadow Trinity that had one subject.
The Shogun's only son leaned against a steel worktable in the Cave's workshop, muscular arms crossed over the white t-shirt stretched over his broad chest. Overhead a halogen light cast the metal spartan metal platform in it's harsh glare. He had called a meeting of the Shadow Trinity that had one subject.
Alpha Dog.
And ya didn't invite me? Didn't yer ma teach ya any manners at all?
His feet pushed off the sides of walls, his body turning, flipping and gliding through the air with nay a whisper of sound. And as the soles of his boots touched cold floor of a platform, his landing was silent as well. There, leaning against a workbench, was Richard. Looking more than hawk in a simple white t-shirt. Grimmwald hardly wore civilian clothes. His Shroud was less restrictive, and it was fireproof - in case the Strigidae ever set him on fire. Passing his eyes over Richard for any cuts and bruises on his brother's skin, Grimmwald's eyes soon lifted to meet his brother's with a nod. "I'm glad you called this meeting. After your and Tessa's injuries, I'd been meaning to ask you both about them".
@hawkshade: @grimmwald: She could hear Richard moving around, the restless shuffle of his feet, and she could practically feel the unsettled energy emanating from him. She grabbed her cup of coffee and gingerly padded over to where he, and now Kellan, had gathered. She tried to ignore the pain in her muscles, but the bruising on her throat made that a little difficult, as did the stitches in her torso expertly applied by Ashley Knightfall.
Truth be told she was a mess, and she knew that the black eyeliner that had raccooned on her face didn't really help that, nor did the messy bun, leggings, and loose tunic shirt. "Does this mean I'm not the pretty one anymore?" she asked pleasantly as she stood with with her brothers, locking her knees in place, and taking a sip of iced coffee.
A little grin cracked the stoic exterior of his broad, heavy boned face. "Kellan's the looker now." As he spoke a hand ran over one of the scars on his chest left behind by Alpha Dogs claws.
"I'll cut to the chase. I to bring Alpha Dog down myself. Didn't work out. He's strong; too strong for me alone." Then he looked at the redhead. "Tessa, can I ask what happened? I can guess but.."
"I didn't know I wasn't before", he said with folded arms and a raise of his left brow. And though a playful smile came, it soon vanished as the air grew heavy with Richard's words. Holding both Richard and Tessa with his gaze, the scarlet shade of his eyes seemed to fade as his concern for them mounted. "Had you not called this meeting, I'd probably be out there right now, searching for him. They say third time's the charm so the job he started with the two of you - he may finished with me", he scowled, blood boiling at the recklessness that might have cut his life so short. Or not, a part of him felt. Maybe I could've... no.. he's too strong, too dangerous.
"After you answer Richard's question, I want both of you to tell me everything you know about Dog. His tendencies, abilities, everything", Grimmwald paused, "Because he can't be kept in a normal prison. We'll need to send him somewhere he'll never see the light of day".
"That's because we like to allow you your fiction," she said, smirking, doing her best to lighten the mood, as always, before it took a more dour turn... as always. She avoided both of their curious gazes, knowing that every lash against her was a lash against them. They had a bond with each other that was forged in ways no mind would want to imagine and they had chosen her, to save her, to make her their sister, and she never took that lightly. And so she knew that what came next was going to be hard for them.
Her green eyes shuttered as she took a deep breath. "He pulled me into an alleyway, knew about the torture/kill, tried to get info from me. I sliced him with a poisoned blade in the gut, it did nothing. I tried to get away, doused myself to throw off his scent and made it to the bay. He got me in the water. Drowned me. When I woke up he..." She turned her head for a moment, took a sip of her coffee, toyed with the edge of her shirt as she stitches in her side pulled. "I had some puncture wounds from his claws. He hooked me to a car battery and shocked me, again and again and again. He wanted information about my former employers. I dislocated my shoulder.... he wouldn't stop. And so I gave him just enough to make it stop, and then I passed out." She moved around the two of them, turning her back to them. She knew that any weakness they saw from her would affect them, make them second-guess choices, make them try and protect her even more. "And you know the rest from there."
Tessa turned back around, her eyes a little more clear, and the black makeup surrounding them in stark contrast to the alabaster of her skin. "The name I know him by is simply 'Dog.' He's a bit of a myth in my old circles." Assassins. Spies. "He worked with Ivana, he was her attack dog. He doesn't have any morals or qualms. He loves the thrill of a kill and drawing it out for as long as possible. He excels at mental and physical torture - he's a true sadist. And he's known for messy kills. I was able to hack into the MRF files and also obtain footage from inside Venezuela, specifically of an altercation he had with Renegade. I don't think he's killable."
A muscle flexed in his jaw and his knuckles turned white gripping the table he leaned against. "'Dog' is right. He's a goddamn animal." Tessa was one of his only friends in the world and although she was lord and master in the digital realm she wasn't like Richard and Kellon. He felt protective of her; Tessa represented more to him than just friendship. She represented the choice that put him on his current path. She represented redemption. His fist bounced off the steel table and left a bloody smear where he skinned his knuckles.
I don't think he's killable. Those words echoed long and loud in Grimmwald's mind. Breaking his gaze from Richard and Tessa, he stared into empty space, deep in thought as each word floated to his ears more muffled than the last. What was he to make of that? Was he the kind of beast who walked through fire unscathed? Or was he the kind of twisted monstrosity that regrew his limbs in the span of hours? "So he's a savage beast who enjoys drawing out his kills", Grimmwald rasped, breaking his silence to find Richard and Tessa's eyes with his own. "That can be used against him. Seems he gives his enemies too much time". Perhaps that was why Richard and Tessa still breathed, because Dog had been reckless with them, waited too long. The thought boiled his blood. Richard and Tessa were his family, not the playthings of a savage brute.
Grimmwald scowled, and seethed, face growing hot before he cooled his boiling blood with a calm breath. Focus. "He's savage. But it looks like the way he fights works best against single opponents, not a group. You need focus and a gameplan to engage multiple attackers". Looking at Tessa, Grimmwald asked the question that'd been poking at his mind since she first spoke. "What do you mean he's not killable? Crazy durability or crazy regeneration?". For durability, they could engage Dog in a battle of attrition, break him down with time. But for regeneration? They may need Ashley's medical expertise, perhaps a chemical to slow or snuff it.
Her knees began to waver and buckle. She'd been standing for too long, she was still too sapped of energy despite copious amounts of caffeine and doctor-prescribed pain pills which she absolutely refused to take. She forced herself to remain upright before slowly walking over to the desk and hoisting herself up onto it. That... might have been a mistake. Tessa controlled the wince as her sutures pulled and she knew that if any blood had oozed out she'd be in trouble.
"He's methodical when he needs to be, he's not caught up in blood lust. There have been instances where he's hunted prey, and instances where he was sent in with a direct kill order, and completed that with no fuss." Tessa's brows pushed together as she nibbled at her lip, mulling over everything she knew and matching it against everything she'd seen. "Both, I think it's both. Or the crazy regeneration is so crazy that it makes it seem like crazy durability. I went hunting for footage or records or cables. He was at ground zero of the Gothic bombardment, he's tanked incendiaries. The poisoned blade that I sliced him with should have had him dead in seconds. It didn't phase him. He heals from anything and does so quickly enough that it doesn't even hinder him into unconsciousness."
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