Upon arriving at the island, Kaine immediately felt justified in all of the trouble he went through to take back temporarily borrow the Scarlet Spider costume. There was no way at 6’4” he was ever going to blend in with these people, and there was no way in hell he was going to be remade by magic, even the temporary, purely cosmetic sort. He was the living, breathing byproduct of mad science and had the added bonus of having some sort of living spider god or monster or whatever inside of his head. No, he was not going to throw magic into the mix.
So that left the Scarlet Spider costume’s stealth function, his personal brand of getting around undetected. He’d hadn’t been caught in stealth mode yet (he vaguely remembered Parker mentioning something about special lenses being needed to see it), and he doubted this would be any different, even with these people’s reported strong magical abilities.
His first order of business saw him swinging around the city, his preferred mode of transportation, to get a lay of the land and see if he could spot anything interesting. Should anything go south, they’d need to know the best way out of there, because now that they were no longer on the safety of the turtle (which, frankly, was a weird thought—the turtle being the safe place), they were on their own, and it was up to them to get back. He made several trips around, trying to familiarize himself with as many of the streets as possible.
As he landed on one of the taller roofs when his arms started screaming from the strain of being up in the air for so long, Kaine was drawn to the sound of someone giving what sounded to be, judging by the reactions of the crowd, a rousing speech. He inched closer towards the noise, taking caution even though he knew he was still invisible to the world around him, until he could make out what was being said.
“—The President only has power because we have given it to him. It is important for both us and him to remember that he is only as powerful as we allow him to be.”
Kaine crawled down the side of the building for a better look at the speaker. There, in the center of a group of young Endai, stood a rather disheveled, older Endai male wearing tattered robes that reminded the clone of a cross between Jesus and a hobo (and he was sure his priest would be thrilled to hear him make that comparison). He noticed that the guy didn’t wear his ears tied in a bow like the others.
“Damn it, now I have that stupid song stuck in my head again,” he muttered, grateful that no one seemed to notice a voice coming from thin air. He cursed “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” again, only this time he made sure to do it in his head.
One of the angrier young kedan cried out “Well then what should we do about it?!”
“That isn’t for me to say, Torris. Need I remind you that I am not actually speaking out against our president, nor calling any of you to any kind of action? I am merely speaking in terms of the laws of our land.” Kaine wondered if tiny hobo Jesus down there was some sort of diplomat or something, because that was some expert sidestepping there. From the way he was looking around as he said it, he was clearly shrewd to boot.
“But Ke Divan--!” yelled another in the crowd. So tiny hobo Jesus had a name. Good to know.
“But nothing. You kids asked for a lesson in political law, and that is what I am giving you today. Nothing more.”
He’d heard enough. Evastelei’s intel was on the money, a number of these people were seriously unhappy with their president, and Kaine now had a name of one of the major dissenters. Or at least someone who appeared to be a major dissenter. That had to be a start. Now to get back to the meeting point and figure out what to—
Angry shouting erupted from the crow below, and Kaine turned around just in time to see about a half dozen policemen show up to surround the crowd, their hands glowing in what he could only imagine was their equivalent of flashing a gun.
“On suspicion of creating public unrest, you lot are coming with us.”
What to do? On the one hand, Kaine knew he could easily take out 6 guys, magic powers or no. Especially since he had the element of surprise… but that was the problem. If he got the drop on them, it was over. He would all but announce his arrival on the island, and god knows how well the people would take it. Sure, the people who looked ready to fight the cops as it was would have his back, but was he really ready to sacrifice Peter and May’s safety against the asshole they were all apparently summoned for to save some rabbit people he didn’t even know? Because frankly that was the only reason he was even there. To hopefully gather some people who could help keep the kids safe when the big battle everyone kept talking about finally came… because God knew he wouldn’t be able to protect them on his own.
“That won’t be necessary, officers,” said Ke Divan. “I cause the unrest, I shall go quietly.” He looked to the kids surrounding him. “And everyone else will go home. Isn’t that right?”
The young Endai looked torn. It was clear from their body language they were raring for a fight, but the expressions on their faces also made it clear they wanted to listen to what Ke Divan had said. Finally, the crowd relaxed, and several nodded. The policemen’s hands stopped glowing.
“You know the routine by now,” said one of the police officers.
Ke Divan walked towards the officers like he had done it a hundred times—and who knows, he probably did, given the way talking out of turn seemed to be against the law here—and followed the six back towards what Kaine knew from his many swingovers was the palace as the crowd hesitantly dispersed.
Kaine followed from the rooftops as the six started walking towards the palace. Three streets in, the six became four as two left to patrol elsewhere, and then the following street the four became two. Again, the clone debated getting the drop on the guards and saving tiny hobo Jesus.
“And then what?” He thought. “Bring him with me? Yeah, that’d go over great. I can add kidnapping to my interdimensional rap sheet.”
But the idea wouldn’t go away. In fact, it only seemed to get stronger the closer they got to the palace walls. Though he would never admit it, the conflict gnawed at him. He should be doing something. Even if he wasn’t a hero, that damn thought wouldn’t leave his mind… and then he tripped over beautiful, beautiful inspiration. This roof was getting work done. A couple of “accidental” drops of debris from the construction later, the two guards were passed out and sporting nasty bumps on their heads as Ke Divan looked around, bewildered.
Kaine landed on the ground beside one of the guards, as he wasn’t sure if he had actually hit her hard enough to knock her out, and upon seeing he had, said against his better judgment: “Too easy.”
Ke Divan’s eyes went wide. “What…? Who’s there?!”
Shit. Kaine leaped up to the roof of the opposite building and took off as Ke Divan cried “wait!” after him. What the hell was he thinking?! Don’t worry, he kept thinking to himself, the guy isn’t exactly going to go running to the cops about what happened. Besides, maybe it was totally possible for the Endai to have some sort of invisibility spell, and hobo Jesus will think it was one of his friends who saved him.
And maybe the Endai should have created buildings closer together. Kaine was so focused on mentally berating himself he ran out of roofs to run across. With no Spider Sense to warn him he had just leapt off his last roof before the palace (which was just far enough away for him to be unable to grab a hold of, even with his enhanced agility), he simply started plummeting to the ground, barely having enough time to spin a web to cushion his blow. His fast acting may have saved him from breaking anything, but it didn’t stop him from seeing stars.
“Fuck this place,” Kaine groaned, clutching his head with one hand as he checked for broken bones with the other. “I hate it already.”
A high-pitched gasp caused the clone to look up with a start. There, almost right in front of him, was a small Endai girl dressed in rags and looking like she was in strong need of a bath. And she was staring straight at him. He looked down at himself and saw the spider insignia on his chest. Shit. In his panic to make sure he didn’t puncture a lung or something, he had lost the concentration needed to keep him invisible.
“Hey, uh, I’m a figment of your imagination.”
The look on the girl’s face said it all. She wasn’t buying that.
“Uh… I’m a ghost?”
Not flying.
“Some sort of urban legend?”
Nope.
Well, at least she wasn’t screaming. It was only once the initial panic died down did he notice she had a sign next to her, and an overturned hat. He didn’t need to be able to read the sign to know what it said.
“How about this. I go grab you lunch—it is still lunch, right?—and you forget you ever saw me.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. Okay, now he was getting somewhere. One stolen lunch later, he was confident he had bought her silence (er… well, in the “don’t sign anything” sense, he supposed, as it seemed the girl was mute), and Kaine was swinging back to the rendezvous point to meet up with Barnes and Hawke. Hopefully they had also learned something useful.
no subject
take backtemporarily borrow the Scarlet Spider costume. There was no way at 6’4” he was ever going to blend in with these people, and there was no way in hell he was going to be remade by magic, even the temporary, purely cosmetic sort. He was the living, breathing byproduct of mad science and had the added bonus of having some sort of living spider god or monster or whatever inside of his head. No, he was not going to throw magic into the mix.So that left the Scarlet Spider costume’s stealth function, his personal brand of getting around undetected. He’d hadn’t been caught in stealth mode yet (he vaguely remembered Parker mentioning something about special lenses being needed to see it), and he doubted this would be any different, even with these people’s reported strong magical abilities.
His first order of business saw him swinging around the city, his preferred mode of transportation, to get a lay of the land and see if he could spot anything interesting. Should anything go south, they’d need to know the best way out of there, because now that they were no longer on the safety of the turtle (which, frankly, was a weird thought—the turtle being the safe place), they were on their own, and it was up to them to get back. He made several trips around, trying to familiarize himself with as many of the streets as possible.
As he landed on one of the taller roofs when his arms started screaming from the strain of being up in the air for so long, Kaine was drawn to the sound of someone giving what sounded to be, judging by the reactions of the crowd, a rousing speech. He inched closer towards the noise, taking caution even though he knew he was still invisible to the world around him, until he could make out what was being said.
“—The President only has power because we have given it to him. It is important for both us and him to remember that he is only as powerful as we allow him to be.”
Kaine crawled down the side of the building for a better look at the speaker. There, in the center of a group of young Endai, stood a rather disheveled, older Endai male wearing tattered robes that reminded the clone of a cross between Jesus and a hobo (and he was sure his priest would be thrilled to hear him make that comparison). He noticed that the guy didn’t wear his ears tied in a bow like the others.
“Damn it, now I have that stupid song stuck in my head again,” he muttered, grateful that no one seemed to notice a voice coming from thin air. He cursed “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” again, only this time he made sure to do it in his head.
One of the angrier young kedan cried out “Well then what should we do about it?!”
“That isn’t for me to say, Torris. Need I remind you that I am not actually speaking out against our president, nor calling any of you to any kind of action? I am merely speaking in terms of the laws of our land.”
Kaine wondered if tiny hobo Jesus down there was some sort of diplomat or something, because that was some expert sidestepping there. From the way he was looking around as he said it, he was clearly shrewd to boot.
“But Ke Divan--!” yelled another in the crowd. So tiny hobo Jesus had a name. Good to know.
“But nothing. You kids asked for a lesson in political law, and that is what I am giving you today. Nothing more.”
He’d heard enough. Evastelei’s intel was on the money, a number of these people were seriously unhappy with their president, and Kaine now had a name of one of the major dissenters. Or at least someone who appeared to be a major dissenter. That had to be a start. Now to get back to the meeting point and figure out what to—
Angry shouting erupted from the crow below, and Kaine turned around just in time to see about a half dozen policemen show up to surround the crowd, their hands glowing in what he could only imagine was their equivalent of flashing a gun.
“On suspicion of creating public unrest, you lot are coming with us.”
What to do? On the one hand, Kaine knew he could easily take out 6 guys, magic powers or no. Especially since he had the element of surprise… but that was the problem. If he got the drop on them, it was over. He would all but announce his arrival on the island, and god knows how well the people would take it. Sure, the people who looked ready to fight the cops as it was would have his back, but was he really ready to sacrifice Peter and May’s safety against the asshole they were all apparently summoned for to save some rabbit people he didn’t even know? Because frankly that was the only reason he was even there. To hopefully gather some people who could help keep the kids safe when the big battle everyone kept talking about finally came… because God knew he wouldn’t be able to protect them on his own.
“That won’t be necessary, officers,” said Ke Divan. “I cause the unrest, I shall go quietly.” He looked to the kids surrounding him. “And everyone else will go home. Isn’t that right?”
The young Endai looked torn. It was clear from their body language they were raring for a fight, but the expressions on their faces also made it clear they wanted to listen to what Ke Divan had said. Finally, the crowd relaxed, and several nodded. The policemen’s hands stopped glowing.
“You know the routine by now,” said one of the police officers.
Ke Divan walked towards the officers like he had done it a hundred times—and who knows, he probably did, given the way talking out of turn seemed to be against the law here—and followed the six back towards what Kaine knew from his many swingovers was the palace as the crowd hesitantly dispersed.
Kaine followed from the rooftops as the six started walking towards the palace. Three streets in, the six became four as two left to patrol elsewhere, and then the following street the four became two. Again, the clone debated getting the drop on the guards and saving tiny hobo Jesus.
“And then what?” He thought. “Bring him with me? Yeah, that’d go over great. I can add kidnapping to my interdimensional rap sheet.”
But the idea wouldn’t go away. In fact, it only seemed to get stronger the closer they got to the palace walls. Though he would never admit it, the conflict gnawed at him. He should be doing something. Even if he wasn’t a hero, that damn thought wouldn’t leave his mind… and then he tripped over beautiful, beautiful inspiration. This roof was getting work done. A couple of “accidental” drops of debris from the construction later, the two guards were passed out and sporting nasty bumps on their heads as Ke Divan looked around, bewildered.
Kaine landed on the ground beside one of the guards, as he wasn’t sure if he had actually hit her hard enough to knock her out, and upon seeing he had, said against his better judgment: “Too easy.”
Ke Divan’s eyes went wide. “What…? Who’s there?!”
Shit. Kaine leaped up to the roof of the opposite building and took off as Ke Divan cried “wait!” after him. What the hell was he thinking?! Don’t worry, he kept thinking to himself, the guy isn’t exactly going to go running to the cops about what happened. Besides, maybe it was totally possible for the Endai to have some sort of invisibility spell, and hobo Jesus will think it was one of his friends who saved him.
And maybe the Endai should have created buildings closer together. Kaine was so focused on mentally berating himself he ran out of roofs to run across. With no Spider Sense to warn him he had just leapt off his last roof before the palace (which was just far enough away for him to be unable to grab a hold of, even with his enhanced agility), he simply started plummeting to the ground, barely having enough time to spin a web to cushion his blow. His fast acting may have saved him from breaking anything, but it didn’t stop him from seeing stars.
“Fuck this place,” Kaine groaned, clutching his head with one hand as he checked for broken bones with the other. “I hate it already.”
A high-pitched gasp caused the clone to look up with a start. There, almost right in front of him, was a small Endai girl dressed in rags and looking like she was in strong need of a bath. And she was staring straight at him. He looked down at himself and saw the spider insignia on his chest. Shit. In his panic to make sure he didn’t puncture a lung or something, he had lost the concentration needed to keep him invisible.
“Hey, uh, I’m a figment of your imagination.”
The look on the girl’s face said it all. She wasn’t buying that.
“Uh… I’m a ghost?”
Not flying.
“Some sort of urban legend?”
Nope.
Well, at least she wasn’t screaming. It was only once the initial panic died down did he notice she had a sign next to her, and an overturned hat. He didn’t need to be able to read the sign to know what it said.
“How about this. I go grab you lunch—it is still lunch, right?—and you forget you ever saw me.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. Okay, now he was getting somewhere. One stolen lunch later, he was confident he had bought her silence (er… well, in the “don’t sign anything” sense, he supposed, as it seemed the girl was mute), and Kaine was swinging back to the rendezvous point to meet up with Barnes and Hawke. Hopefully they had also learned something useful.