A Cure For Boredom [Shade]

[Deleted]

It's been a relatively quiet day for Hawkgirl as she explores the country, flying high over much of it. With so many large cities scattered by the coasts, the middle of the United States seems relatively boring. But each time she passes near one of the larger cities she slows, dives in closer, and looks and listens for trouble. Naturally, she does the same as she approaches Keystone, and at first nothing seems to be amiss - which is a bit irritating actually; she'd rather have something to break up the tedium of exploration.

However, as she passes over the financial district, the muffles sound of a few screams reaches her ears. It doesn't last long, but Hawkgirl is able to pinpoint where it's coming from and speeds forward to reach the building it's coming from. And since it's a bank, she has about two guesses about what's going on. Diving in for a closer look, her suspicions are confirmed when she sees several masked gunmen inside: a couple of them just finishing gathering the frightened employees and customers together while the rest go after the money.

Quickly deciding on the best course of action, she throws her mace through the front window, shattering it and striking one of the men guarding the civilians in the back. And though it was really quite a gentle toss by Hawkgirl's standards - as evidenced by the fact that it didn't kill him - he'll definitely be feeling that one tomorrow. Using the broken window as a convenient entrance, she flies at the second man and doesn't land until she's used her momentum to punch him in the face. Once again, she's going easy on him: once the broken nose and concussion heal, he'll be fine.

Now, having taken care of the guards and placed herself between the civilians and the rest of the gang, all of whom are watching her in great astonishment, she quickly glances up and counts four men with guns pointed defensively at her. Too easy. She charges at them, neatly scooping up her thrown mace as she half runs, half flies in their direction. The few bullets they send her way before she reaches them are neatly deflected by the combination of her mace and her reflexes, though she doesn't use the mace on them. Instead she shoulders the first one into a wall, knocks the second in the back of the head with one of her wings, and knocks the third one flat with a sideswipe of her legs.

The fourth one tries to run - why do they always think that they can run? She simply continues after him, ending the absurdly slow chase by reaching down and catching hold of one of his ankles, she trips him and then uses that hold to drag him back to where the others are all moaning on the floor. "Any of you planning on standing up before the police get here? Please say yes," she says, though unfortunately they all seem to have the good sense to stay put. Oh well, at least it was entertaining while it lasted.

[shade]

Richard Swift was a man who had traveled the world. He had befriended some of the most honorable people to meet in the history of the planet. He had many adventures which brought him against some of the mightiest foes, but that was all history. Richard was bored out of his mind in this present era. There was no challenge for him any longer, and his prior hobbies were no longer thrilling.

With ease Richard Swift walked the Financial District of Keystone City hoping for some form of excitement. Then a bank robbery began at one of the local banks. Like many other people, he only observed from across the street. However he didn't care about the robbers, he was hoping for some superhero to come and save the day. Richard had heard of this new generation of superheroes, but had yet to encounter one. He got his wish moments later, when a projectile weapon came flying through the bank window, and a hero followed.

There it was! A true adversary for him to joust with. His recent moments of boredom were overcame with pure thrill. Richard observed as the hero brought a hard hand of justice to his opponents. It wasn't something he agreed with at all, but it wasn't a major turn off either. As the hero subdued the bank robbers, Richard strolled his way across the street. For the most part, the crowds surrounding the bank had their attention set on the action inside the bank. With ease he pulled out his cane-sword and allowed darkness to cover his entire body, concealing his identity

A smugged smile graced his face as he moved in on his new chosen adversary. That was until he realized his adversary had breast. In the gentleman's honest option, women shouldn't be behaving in such a manner. Super-heroine or not. It was highly unflattering and the feeling showed on his face as he maneuvered his way into the bank though the broken window. With distaste he looked at the woman and the men defeated by her. Richard was about 200 years old, but he still had mindsets which predated the present era.

Shadows and darkness followed behind him. The shadows slowly creped into the bank like a smoky mist. With pose he wandered closer to the bags of money that the men had attempted to seize. Shadows covered the bags, taking them away and into the dark zone for later retrieval. As the money was being taken away, The Shade turned his attention back to the woman.

“Do you always behave so barbaric woman? Honestly don't you have other endeavors to attend to other than walking around with... all this masculine energy?” he said with a smugged look of distaste.

[Deleted]

When the light in the bank starts to dim a little, Hawkgirl is quick to notice and look around to see if she can spot the cause. Seeing who just entered, her eyes narrow in suspicion, but until she knows if he's friend or foe she won't jump to conclusions. If she were to judge someone based on their appearance, then she'd have to condemn herself, after all.

Of course, actions speak for themselves, and there's an obviously angry twist to Hawkgirl's lips as the money disappears into the shadows. Shadows that are obviously controlled by this man. No, he's obviously not going to be a friend. Still, reflecting on her training, she's cautious when faced with an unknown situation and spares a moment to try to evaluate this opponent.

Even as she does so, she has no fear or doubt that she can defeat him, but that doesn't mean that she should let herself be too reckless. Then again, his words make it so tempting to throw all caution to the wind. "You're saying that you object to me because I'm a woman?!?" she asks, obviously offended, "Either bring that money back, or I'll show you just how 'barbaric' I can be!" She brings her mace out in front of herself, and the head of it crackles with electricity. Not that she intends to use it - at least, not unless he shows some sign that he's less fragile than any other human - but she's all too happy to threaten.

And if the restless movements of her wings is any indication, she has plenty more 'masculine' energy where that came from. The brief skirmish with the bank robbers didn't even make her breathe hard.

[shade]

“Are you serious?” The Shade began to smile, not out of happiness, but at the humor he found in the situation. He understood times had changed since the 1800's but this was just too much for him. Slowly he shock his head as he walked closer to the woman, a smugged smirk planted on his face.

“Well aren't you charming, im sure you have tons of men just waiting to court you. I mean, how could any man resist such a strong and handsome wo-man” He slightly chuckled as he made his sarcastic remark. Firmly he crossed his arms and looked away from her. He gave little concern to her weapon, as he was definitely confident in his own ability over any man's, nonetheless 'more the less' a woman's.

“As far as the money goes, im sorry but I can't do that unfortunately. Now why don't you go and call one of your male friends to come and face me, im sure you have male superfriends, no ?” He slowly walked near the bank window and looked up at the sky, hoping for a worthy male adversary to come flying down. “Hurry up now dear, I don't have all day. Be a good girl and give them a call for me.” His eyes and body posture stood ready and focused for whatever male superhero came next. However he paid little attention to the able & ready superheroine behind him.

[Deleted]

Hawkgirl is a woman of action and not words, so she doesn't dignify his insults with any comments of her own. Instead she visibly tenses - she was prepared to attack him if he refused to give up the money anyway, but the blatant disrespect makes her angry. Even so, she reminds herself to be careful - but mostly she suspects that whatever power this guy may have may make it impossible to retrieve the money without his help; her usual reasoning that killing someone when you don't need to is wrong seems rather flimsy to her at this moment.

When he has the nerve to turn his back, that's the last straw, and with no prelude, she simply shoves herself in his direction with both legs and wings lending her speed and force. But, mindful of her strength, she simply aims her shoulder at him so that he'll be knocked by that amount of blunt force rather than bringing her weapon to bear. Should be enough to knock him through the window and a few feet beyond, but not kill him. She doesn't mind sending criminals to the hospital, though...

But then, she's already getting a sense that there's something... odd about him, beyond just the shadows, and even as she throws herself at him she keeps her mace firmly grasped in both hands in case she needs to move it quickly to deflect something. For all she knows he's baiting her on purpose, and though simply charging in is par for the course for her that doesn't mean that she doesn't do it intelligently; she's many decades older than she appears, spent much of that time training in one of the strongest militaries in the galaxy, and even gained some prestige in it.

[shade]

Without any notice, or even a moment to react, The Shade was stuck with a flying shoulder to the back. He held his mouth tightly shut as the pain traveled through his back. Mostly out of the embarrassment of showing any sign of pain at the hand of the women.

The force of the blow sends The Shade flying through the window at full speed. For a moment he loses his breath, but that really didn't matter, he wasn't really alive or dead, so breathing was more of a superficial effect. Before he reached the concrete floor, the man teleported himself into the dark zone and back onto earth outside the bank.

Standing in front of the bank he lowered his head, and smirked. With his cane-sword in his right hand and his left hand on the bridge of his hat. He slammed his cane-sword into the ground, and darkforce energy rose up around him. The dark energy launched at the women like projectile beams. The Shade did not expect any of them to hit her, but instead warm her.

“I warn you, if you continue to pursue me I will have no other choice than to use force against you. I do not condone men hitting women, but I will do what is necessary.” Richard was sorta intrigued, but he never considered any women capable enough to be a adversary to him. She had much to prove.

[Deleted]

Stopping herself just outside the window, Hawkgirl is prepared to view the results of her handiwork but is astonished to see him seemingly disappear and reappear. She blinks at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, trying to figure out what just happened. But her surprise doesn't negate her training, and she expertly handles the projectiles - dodging some and blocking the ones she can't avoid with the handle of her mace using quick movements. Not only has he found a woman that is eager to fight, but she's obviously got some skill. And that blow she gave him clearly had more strength behind it than you'd think a woman her size was capable of.

When he gives her that warning, instead of taking any time to consider it she uses the moment to evaluate the situation. Clearly this man is even more odd about him than she suspected. If he were at all ordinary he'd be moaning on the ground at this point, and instead he seems perfectly fine. Did he feel that at all? She hadn't been able to see him flinch since she was behind him, so she doesn't know. And she has absolutely no understanding of whatever this power is that he's wielding. Some people would be unnerved by all the unknowns. Hawkgirl simply loses that lingering sense of boredom she's had since discovering how weak humans are - finally, something hard!

"I'd like to see you try to use force against me!" she snaps back, though the words are sincere. And with no more warning than that she charges again, propelling herself at him once again at superhuman speed through the combined strength of her feet against the ground and her wings against the air. But this time she keeps her mace held in front of her, wary of more projectiles and anything else he may care to throw at her now that she's made her intentions perfectly clear. If he does nothing to stop her, this time the blow will come from the mace's handle, held between her hands - the shoulder obviously wasn't good enough so she'll happily take it up a notch. Nth metal always strikes harder than you'd think it would.

[shade]

“Fine then.” The Shade said before the woman propelled herself toward him at superhuman speed. He slightly smirked as this was something new to him, and gave him a much needed thrill. Honestly he had not encountered many female super heroines in his lifetime. There were a few, but none of them showed themselves as capable as the one coming toward him at superhuman speed.

The Gentleman threw up a shadowy forcefield around himself but he wasn't sure if it would materialize fast enough. Luckily it partially did. As the women strikes him, she is meet by the field. While he wasn't touched, the pure force brought down the partial force-field and sent The Shade flying backwards. A black shadowy pit opened up in the ground and a large black hand rose up from within . At The Shade's mental command, the hand reached for him and caught him before he could be slammed into a near-by building.

Still in the giant shadowy hand he lifted both of his arms to the sky, opening a dark portal to the dark zone. From within the portal came two flying demons of shadow. At The Shade's mental command they launched themselves at full speed towards the woman. As the demons rushed towards the women, the giant hand lowered him to the ground and then aimed for the woman like a fly swatter.

He didn't know who this women was or where she was from, but she was definitely showing The Shade a good time. He started smirking, as he realized he had underestimated her, and he actually may need to crank things up a little bit. His underestimation of her abilities left The Shade vulnerable and open to her attacks. However now that he was interested, he wanted to see how far she really could go. “You got me interested... good job.” he said as he watched his creatures of darkness descend down on her.

[Deleted]

Brought to a standstill as all of her momentum is transferred into the forcefield, Hawkgirl eyes widen again in disbelief when he's caught by... a giant, shadowy hand? Who is this guy? But once again, it would take far more than that disturb Hawkgirl. The many worlds she's seen - the aliens, the technology, and even magic. This is nothing to her. Well, nothing scary, anyway.

But she is surprised when two flying figures of shadow appear, though it's short lived. Instead the shock is replaced by a smirk - she's yet to meet the creature that can out-fly her, and this planet has seemed to be totally lacking in aerial threats until now. Sufficiently distracted for a moment from the man who caused all of this, she leaps into the air to dodge both hand and demons, clearing two stories in a heartbeat. But as she jumps she purposely selects a path that puts one of the shadow demon's wings just within range of a full swing from the head of her mace, which crackles with electricity just before it hits. When encountering something unknown, a test shot before you dive right into the fray is a good idea.

Of course, she's yet to find the substance on this planet that can stand up to her mace. Not that she's used it to really fight before, but it is also good at breaking things that get in the way when she's trying to rescue someone trapped somewhere. Thick pieces of concrete crumble before it. Metal caves in. And it's still unscratched. But then, the fact that he was able to stop her with a barrier is somewhat surprising - perhaps these shadowy figures are also made of tougher stuff as well. A part of her hopes so, because then maybe she'll finally get in a decent fight.

[shade]

One of the shadowy flying creatures were hit by the woman's mace. Electricity crackled from the dangerous weapon sending the creature tail spinning. The creature was thrown into a near-by building, breaking through everything in its path. It's body sparked with electricity as the creature twitched and flopped around inside a building. When the sparks stopped, the creature rested as it regained it's strength from the blow.

The other shadowy flying creature launched itself at the women at full speed. It started to become more darkforce energy than solid as it headed toward the women like a kamikaze. The Shade mentally commanded the creature to explode upon colliding with the woman. The explosion would cause the woman sufficient danger to at least get her out of the skies momentarily.

From the abyss pit, rose the the full shadowy body of the hand. It stood taller than any building in the the financial district. Feet behind the flying creature, it strolled toward the woman slightly shaking the area with each footstep. Slowly behind his shadowy creations walked The Shade with darkness and darkforce energy flowing from his body like water. It was hard to tell where his body ended and the darkness began.

As the police arrived, The Shade turned around, and pointed his arms in their direction. The police opened fire, but their bullets were meet by a shield of darkforce energy. A smile rose on The Shade's face as the bullets made contact with the shield and then dropped to the street. From his hands streams of darkforce energy shot out, throwing the officers back like leaves caught in the wind. They were shattered and out of the fight.

Smoothly, and looking like he was floating in darkness, The Shade turned back around and continued his approach behind the barrier of shadowy creatures. He was enjoying this 'joust' with the super-heroine, way more than he expected. The Gentleman still wondered who she was, however he knew that introductions would have to be placed on hold till later.

[Deleted]

Observing the results of her blow, Hawkgirl winces internally at the damage to the building. Hopefully there weren't any people in its path, or that anyone who was can escape relatively unharmed. But she can't afford to stop and worry about that - instead she simply learns what she needed to from it: just how effective her weapon is against whatever that thing is made of. And that's something she couldn't know without trying.

Her smirk disappears as she turns her attention to the creature charging at her. Not because she isn't still enjoying herself, but because she's now too focused on the fight for her level of enjoyment to be a consideration. Emboldened by the knowledge that the strange shadow stuff wasn't somehow invulnerable to her weapon, she simply sets herself to receive the second creature's charge with her mace held ready. Of course, she doesn't expect the creature to simply explode in her face.

Stunned by the blow, she's thrown backward and into the side of a building, and is just able to slow her fall to the ground with her wings only slightly. However, in addition to being stronger and faster than a human, she's also a great deal more durable. Not that she isn't in any pain, but a Thanagarian does not stop in the middle of a fight to worry about bumps and bruises - though at the moment she's quite grateful for her helmet.

She isn't down for long - no more time than it takes for her to stand back up and give her head a quick shake. Though when she looks up she sees the rest of the creature that the hand belongs to emerging and the police arriving. The latter causes her to groan inwardly: can't they see that the situation is beyond them? But since when has she known humans to be sensible? But she obviously doesn't have time to worry about that - clearly that large creature was a higher priority than worrying about humans stupidly putting themselves in harm's way.

Completely undaunted by the size of her next opponent, Hawkgirl leaps right back into the air and charges straight at it. More specifically, she aims for the knees of the creature - it's always sensible to go after the weakest point. She watches it carefully and keeps her speed slow enough to allow herself to dodge quickly, certain that she wouldn't appreciate getting knocked about by a creature that size, but she also keeps a wary eye out for the return of the one she knocked into that building or any other strange surprises. Strange surprises are clearly par for the course right now.

[shade]

The woman's blow was blocked with the shadowy giant's massive right arm. The giant then preceded to throw a fist directly at the woman. From the depths of the building, the other shadowy flying creature rose. Instead of going toe to toe with the woman, the creature opened it's jaws and released a shadowy fire directed at her. From behind the woman, what was left of the exploded shadowy bird merged into the darkened body of The Shade.

The shadowy body of The Shade grew massively, looking somewhat like a giant cloak of shadow. As The Shade watched from a distance ideas started to flood his mind. He truly wondered if there were ones as powerful as herself. He saw a light at the end of his dark tunnel of boredom. But this little escapade was only the beginning. There was a new generation of heroes rising on the earth and The Shade was going to put them all to the test.

In his past adventures he had done things that were illegal and dark, but he never claimed the title of a villain. Calling himself that would of meant he believed in the concepts of good and evil, which he didn't. However this was a new day and age, he knew what he had to become to them and he was more than ready to do it.

[Deleted]

Hawkgirl is forced to divert her course away from her goal by the giant's movements, but when she's in the air she's as much in her element as a fish is in water. She dodges the fist and fire with remarkable agility as she weaves through all three dimensions she has to work with but is, for the moment, prevented from bringing her mace to bear against her very large opponent.

It's the smaller one that's really the problem - to a creature the giant's size she's no more easier to catch on the wing than it is to catch a butterfly by hand. But if the winged one is going to keep on attacking her indirectly like that, then dodging is probably the best she's going to be able to do. And, realizing this, she abruptly changes tactics as she loops around and charges the other flyer. She'd rather attack it and have to worry about dodging the giant than the other way around and if she can manage to get it out of her way then the giant should be easy. Or at least, that's the theory.

Hawkgirl has had reason to meet and fight many things in this universe, and this is by no means the strangest or (at least thus far) the most difficult fight she's been in. But that doesn't mean that it isn't a delightful break from the mediocrity of the rank and file criminals she's met on this planet up until now. Those guys in the bank, for instance - child's play.

[Hal Jordan]

Many people would have assumed that a simple bank robbery would be beneath the notice of a Green Lantern. They would have been wrong, Lanterns were meant to deal with criminals both large and small. If they didn't seem to be interested in the smaller activities it was only because they had more dangerous things to deal with - or of course because they were not there in the first place.

People also managed to forget that no matter how powerful the Lanterns were they could not be in several places at once. The rings, therefore, tended not to alert Lanterns to each and every situation in their sector or even in the more local area.

Still, if Hal noticed the smaller crimes he was willing and able to do his best to deal with the situation as long as he wasn't trying to save the universe.

This was why he'd dived down and headed for the bank as he heard the alarm - or rather as soon as his ring had picked up the silent alarm someone had set off.

He nearly came to a full stop and did a double take as it came into view. It seemed that a woman with wings was fighting shadows. Not something even a Lantern saw everyday.

"Warning, female appears to be Thanagarian"

"A what?" Hal asked the ring, he'd never heard of that species before. Either they were very new indeed, or they came from one of the very few places that didn't have a Green Lantern.

"Thanagarian, species is listed as highly aggressive. Advise extreme caution. No further information available"

Hal watched the woman hitting one of the shadows with what appeared to be a glowing mace.

"Yeah, I sort of figured out the aggressive part"

The question was if she was a friend or foe. Hal didn't have enough information to go on, so he turned his attention to the bank itself. The woman didn't seem to be (deliberately) putting anyone at risk nor did she appear to be trying to escape. So he'd first check the bank to see of anyone was injured, and possibly capable of letting him know what was going on.

He dropped through the shattered window, glanced around and frowned. Something here didn't feel right, so he scanned the area with the ring. The Green circle of light didn't react to anything until it hit an area of darkness. Then it showed a dark figure within the shadows.

Somehow he doubted the figure was up to any good.

"Stop right there!" He commanded.


(Occ-Scream for edits if needed)

[shade]

The Shade's attention was momentarily taken away from the woman as a man showed up onto the battlefield. The Shade immediately knew that it was time to gear things up, play time was over. He turned his attention back to the woman. As the woman charged at the shadowy flying creature, it quickly dodged her and flew higher into the sky at The Shade's command, hoping to distract her from what was about to come next.

The shadowy giant began to retreat backwards into the veil of darkness. Within seconds, it started to breakup. It turned into ten shadowy flying creatures. These creatures were about three times the size of the first flying creatures. They also were more grey in color and appeared to favor gargoyles. At full speed they launched themselves at the woman with their talons out in front of them. The flying shadowy creature opened it's mouth once again, and launched another stream of darkforce energy which appeared to look like fire in shape.

From underneath the veil of darkness, The Shade monitored the movements of the man into the bank and back out. He wasn't sure who the man was, but he was prepared for whatever came next. By the time the man had noticed The Shade, he was already mentally prepared to strike. Swiftly The Shade teleported behind the man and said “Now why would I do that when I'm only getting started.” Beams of darkforce energy projected from The Shade's hands directed at the back of the man. For protection, The Shade put up a forcefield of darkforce energy around himself.

{ooc: Hawkgirl, feel free to NPC the movements of the flying gargoyles in the air, however let me decided if and when they are hit.}