Attack of The Gremlin
-City of Toronto, Midnight,
under the Gardiner Expressway near CN Tower-
As the vulpine cocaine dealer
counted the money handed to him by the young, twitchy rat standing before him,
he smiled in satisfaction when he found that the withdrawing addict had
actually handed him a hundred dollars more than what he was actually due for
the item. Deciding not to voice it, he pocketed the cash and reached into the
lower pocket of his cargo pants, passing a bag of white powder, teasing the
twitchy rat with it before finally giving it to him, the rat cradling the item
in his hands as if it were his salvation, though it was really his damnation if
anything.
"There ya go, Bobby; good pound of
the stuff," the dealer said. "Don't go using it all up in one night, now; I'm
fresh out until tomorrow."
"Thank you; I really need this," the
rat said, sniffing up some blood running from his nose as he stepped away from
the dealer, seating himself on the ground and pulling out a bottle of water and
syringe that he placed down on a broken skateboard he was using as a table, due
to lack of having a real one to work with and not willing to wait until he got
home to have his next fix.
"See you next time," the dealer said
before he tucked his hands into his pockets and turned away, leaving the rat
-Bobby- to deal with his fix under the EXPWY. Of course the dealer was not
actually out of coke; he'd just said that so he'd still have enough to sell to
his next customer, else Bobby would probably claw at him for more. 'Good thing he's too stupid from his
withdrawal to count his money,' the dealer thought with smug glee as he
strutted away.
He circled the CN Tower, Toronto's
biggest landmark, and made his way to the streets, walking proudly past several
multi-story buildings before he began to get the feeling he was being watched. Every
time he looked over his shoulder, though, he saw nobody following him. This
time of night streets were fairly empty except for a few cars, but nobody
wandered this neighborhood on foot except those who were protected by the local
drug lords -people like himself, so feeling he had nothing to fear, he kept
walking.
The moment he passed an alley,
though, he suddenly felt someone seize his arm and was yanked into the
darkness, yelping in surprise as he was hurled into the side of a dumpster,
stars bursting before his eyes when his head hit. Gritting his teeth and
grunting, he tried to get up and reach for his gun, but halfway to his feet, a
sharp punch to his jaw sent him reeling to the ground, pretty sure he felt a
tooth break.
"Mother f-!" He paused mid-profanity
as he grasped on the back of his shirt, feeling for the gun normally stuffed
down the back of his pants, but it wasn't there.
"Looking for this?" A voice asked.
The dealer turned, and there he was;
a tall figure with caribou features -big, wood-ish looking horns and a narrow
muzzle, hidden under a red mask, clad in white clothes and red accessories,
standing between him and the way out of the alley, with his compact,
concealable handgun nonchalantly between two fingers. In two deft motions, the
figure ejected the magazine in the gun, pulled back the slider to eject the
chambered round, and broke the slider off, letting the three pieces of the gun
fall uselessly to the ground before he took a step towards the dealer, glaring
at him with ominously white eyes.
The dealer lunged for the caribou
and swung at him with his fist, only to miss completely as the figure suddenly
vanished in a blink of light that briefly illuminated the alley. He looked
around in confusion, before he felt a kick to his hindquarters that sent him
stumbling towards the street; another flash of light later and his assailant
was in front of him, performing a clothesline-style elbow smash right to his
mouth. This time teeth did break, and
the male fox fell onto his back, holding his mouth and screaming in pain after
spitting out the fragments of what used to be his teeth.
He felt a foot roughly plant itself
on his chest; he felt the hard bone of a hoof digging into his ribs as the owner
of the foot applied pressure, causing him tremendous pain. "Where is his
money?" A cold voice asked.
"What money?" The dealer asked
through the paws cupped over his muzzle.
"The money that belongs to the man
you just sold cocaine to," the tall, white-clad caribou demanded. "Where is
it?" He growled as he applied more pressure to the fox's chest.
"Ah! Left pocket!" He screamed
through his hands, tears welling in his eyes.
He was roughly pushed over, and felt
a hand digging into his pocket, pulling out the contents before letting him
fall back to the way he was lying. "Don't go anywhere; I'll be back in a
moment," the caribou said as the fox curled up into a fetal position, sobbing
in pain. In another flash of light, the caribou was gone.
Bobby finished mixing the cocaine in
with the water in his bottle, annoyed he'd spilt so much of it in the process,
but as he filled the syringe with the coke-water, he smiled as he raised it up,
looking at the needle with an almost drunken stare as he slowly lowered it to
his arm...
A flash of blue light in front of
him made the rat jump, nearly dropping the syringe as a tall, white-clad figure
materialized from seemingly nothingness before him. He looked up with a start,
and his eyes widened at the figure standing before him, his cocaine withdrawl
briefly forgotten as he stared at the six-foot tall caribou anthro standing
over him, dressed in white from the neck down to the ankles, with red ankle
wraps, red elbow-length gloves and bands around upper arms, a red cape hanging
from his shoulders behind him, blowing in the light breeze passing under the
overpass above them, and finally a red mask that hung over his eyes and
cheekbones, concealing his identity. Even his fur was pale, a silvery white
that made his colourless eyes stand out even in the darkness.
"My god it's you," he said. "You're
the Ghost..."
"I prefer 'The Warp," the caribou
said as he kneel down in front of the rat, who flinched away.
"Whoa man, don't hurt me!"
"I'm not here to hurt you," the Warp
said gently as he held out his hand to the rat, revealing in his palm a thin
wad of cash.
The rat eyed the money quizzically.
"What's that for?" He asked.
"It's the money that dealer took
from you," the Warp replied. "There's actually more in there than you owed
him."
"How do you know that?"
"I'm good at calculations," was the
pale caribou's only reply.
Reluctantly, the rat reached for the
money, eyeing it as if it were foreign to him, until he noticed that the
stranger before him was right. "Hey... there's a hundred dollar bill in here!"
The Warp nodded. "Like I told you."
Bobby looked at the Warp, before he
set the money down next to him. "So... you expecting a thank you? That dealer's
going to be pissed," he said as he lowered the syringe to his arm.
Warp grabbed his wrist with
lightning speed, and gripped it tightly. "Don't," he stated firmly.
"What? No way man; I need this!"
"Your hands are shaking; you might
rupture a vessel."
"I don't care, man; I'll die if I
don't take this."
"You'll die if you do," Warp stated
as he took the syringe away. "Believe me on that."
"Well then what the hell am I
supposed to do, huh?!"
"Five blocks north of here is a
twenty-four hour clinic. Take your money, go there, and make use of that
Ontario Healthcare card of yours... you are a Canadian Citizen, right?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Then make use of it," Warp stated,
leaning forward to the rat got an up-close look at those colourless eyes that
seemed to peer right into his very soul. "Go get yourself detoxed, and kick this
habit. The dealer's already been taken care of, so you won't be getting anymore
fixes from here on out." With that, the white and red clad caribou stood up.
"I'll be watching," he said before he vanished in flash of light that, for only
an instant, chased away the shadow of the overpass, leaving Bobby to ponder
Warp's words as the caribou made off with his coke.
Warp reappeared at the alley where
he left the dealer only to find the man gone, but not far away. He could hear
someone running up the street; peering out of the alley, it sure enough was
none other than his target. Warp reached beneath his cape, producing a pair of
bolas from the back of his belt and twirling them as he strode after the fox.
After a short sprint, he hurled the bolas at the fox; they whistled audibly as
they whirled through the air, closing the distance between the two in seconds
before they whipped around the dealer's body, pulling his arms against his
chest -as he was still holding his cupped hands over his mouthful of broken
teeth- and jamming the heels of his palms into his chin. The two metal spheres
on the ends of the sturdy cable hooked together, and the man was trapped.
Losing his balance the dealer fell
almost flat on his face, nearly dislocating his jaw as he felt his hands jabbed
into his muzzle; the timing of his fall could not have been worse as he saw a
pair of bright lights approaching him on the asphalt, and looked up to see an
approaching car coming at him! He screamed through his hands, until he felt
someone seize him by the tail, and then felt a rush of weightlessness around
him before he felt his body fall onto pavement again, hitting the sidewalk with
bone-jarring force as he landed unwittingly on his elbows.
Sobbing like a little kid the fox
rolled onto his back to look up at Warp. "Have mercy, man!" He begged through
his hands, which were becoming increasingly bloodied from his earlier broken
teeth. The caribou replied by seizing him by the head, hoisting him up to lay
him back against a wall, and then pulling his hands away from his face,
dropping a bag of something in his open, bawling muzzle before letting his
hands slap back against his face.
"I wouldn't swallow that," the Warp
warned callously as he also left a filled syringe at the man's side before stepping
back from him, reaching for a phone on his belt and pressing just one button,
before he vanished from sight in yet another blink of light.
In less than a minute, the dealer
heard police sirens wailing while he sat there bawling, unable to get up without
his hands which were still tightly bound to his body, holding a half-open
baggie of cocaine that was sitting on tongue, fighting the urge to gag as he
cried. The source of the sirens, a police cruiser, screeched to a half on the
curb in front of him, but he didn't even look up as the cops got out of their
car, both of them eyeing the man with a mix of wonder and disgust.
"Damn, looks like you had a bad day,
Trevor."
"The Warp... he's doing our job for
us again," one of them remarked.
Above, sitting on the edge of a
building, Warp stared down as the cops questioned the dealer, and stayed until
an Ambulance arrived on the scene. Lifting a finger to his ear, he tapped a
button on the side of a small object concealed in the ear, and then held his left
wrist close to his muzzle. "Any other alarms out there, Akio?"
"None
at all, Daniel; looks like it's quiet in town tonight," a voice buzzed in
his ear. "You coming back to The Bunker?"
"Looks like I am. May actually sleep tonight," replied Warp as he stood
up. "See you in a moment."
With that, Warp vanished from the
rooftop, oblivious to what was happening at the nearby CN Tower. A large, hair
ridden creature, giggling madly, scaled down the side of the building towards
the bottom of the elevator shaft...
~~~~~
Akio, who was at the workbench
assembling a new bolas, did not even jump as a flash of light filled the room
and he heard the hoof clomps behind him, never taking his eyes off of his work
"Have you ever thought to use the door?" He asked sarcastically, his voice
heavily accented with that of his first language. Akio had only been learning
English when Warp had first met him, and though he spoke it fairly well now,
the thickness of his accent sometimes made him difficult to interpret.
Akio Akechi, a thirty-year old
inventor and expert in all forms of computer analysis, once employed by the
Yakuza, was a Japanese Weasel who spent very little time in the sun, evidence
by the pale skin of his nose and hat could be seen through his fur. He was
short and wiry, with a slight pot belly for spending so much time off of his
feet, and taking a liking to western snack foods ever since coming to Toronto
before he'd met Warp. He had the typical black scalp hair of a Japanese man,
but his eyes were a different shade of brown than normal -they were much
lighter, more of a tan colour. Around his pencil-neck he wore an
emerald-encrusted locket, held up by a thin chain.
"If someone saw me entering this
place, then they'd know where we hide out," Warp returned as he walked around
the bench, hands behind his head to unfasten his mask. "You can't trace
something moving at the speed of light."
"Hai,
that is true," the weasel admitted as he continued to work. "I was watching the
fight through your eye-mask; perhaps you were a little too rough with that
fox?"
"He should be so lucky," replied
Warp. "Normally I leave drug dealers with worse than a few missing teeth; I
often snap a few fingers too."
"Also true," Akio admitted, nodding
at Warp. "So, are you retiring for the night then?"
"I'll listen to the radio a few more
times first, but if there's nothing that I'm needed for then I suppose I will,
yes," Warp replied as he pulled off his mask finally, and in the mirror next to
him, startling changes could already be seen occurring. His fur was rapidly
gaining colour, turning to a mild brown, but his eyes remained white until he
popped out a pair of contact lenses, revealing a pair of light green eyes.
Daniel stared in wonder at his reflection and then
at the mask in his hands; it was a newer mask, sitting flatter against his face
than the cut-up ski mask he'd been using before, which was prone to falling
off, while this one could be tied to the back of his head and clung snugly to
the fur around his eyes, allowing him to be doubly sure he would never lose it.
"I am really liking this mask, Akio; how did you make this?"
"The Yakuza purchased nanites from a
Chinese company in Hong Kong," Akio explained. "The purchase was illegal of
course, but, money talks. When they had them, they turned the nanites over to
me, and told me to use them to make their weapons more effective. Just before I
started though is when you showed up and rescued me, so I stole the nanites and
decided to use the nanites to help you, and I used them to make that mask.
"The nanobots are programmed to
distribute themselves across the fur on your head from the neckline of your
uniform up," Akio continued. "When they attach themselves, they emit a
projection that seemingly turns your fur white, when in all reality it's just a
hologram, and when you lift the lower corners of your mask to remove it, it
alerts the nanites to return to the mask and become dormant."
"Certainly saves me money on that
custom dye I had to order anonymously before," Daniel said, gratuitously.
"Makes it harder to discern my identity too, considering now there aren't
business records of it."
"I aim to please," Akio remarked,
smiling as he got back to work.
Daniel crossed the hideout over to
the radio and also the police scanner next to it, switching both on an
elevating the volume as he began to unfasten his gloves, expecting -and hoping-
he'd be able to call it a night. It had
been a long week for Daniel, not only from fighting crime but also from his
day-job at McKenzie Accounting. His boss was furious that so many of their best
clients were turning out to be criminals, and just as furious that they were
running rather short on clientele, causing a decline in business. He'd been
taking out his frustration on several others in the office, urging them to find
new clients before the business fell into the red.
"A
known narcotics dealer by the name of Trevor Cain was apprehended earlier this
evening," the news reporter on the
radio reported; the police scanner was only reporting a few reported muggings,
speeding drivers or a break-in at a store, all of which the police were
reportedly on top of, leaving no need for Warp to make an appearance. "Police are not giving any official
statements, but we have learned that it may have been the infamous vigilante
known as The Warp who caught this dealer; they were left with numerous broken
teeth and found tied up with a bag of cocaine lodged in his mouth."
"They're talking about you, Danny," Akio remarked.
"I noticed," returned the caribou as
he lifted off his gloves.
"Dispatch
this is 702, we've reports of an unclassifiable 10-33 at 301 Front St. West," the
police scanner buzzed suddenly, cutting in on the news anchorwoman. "I'm making my way there now unless
someone's closer."
"This is 603, 10-4 on that 10-33; we've got a dislodged
elevator at the CN Tower," another chimed in. "We need some
help out here."
"Copy that, 603; contacting EMT's and Fire Department
now."
"Hold it..." the news anchorwoman returned. "We're getting something from one of our reporter's in the field. It
seems there's some kind of disturbance going on at the CN Tower."
"The tower? Didn't you just come from that area?" Akio asked, looking
over his shoulder at Daniel.
"I did, but all was quiet when I
left," replied Warp, already in the progress of putting his gloves back on. "I
better get back there."
"Dispatch;
I have visual on the dislodged elevator; we've got civilians trapped inside!
10-78 stat!"
"Oh my god, there are people in that elevator!" Another voice spoke through
the radio.
"Better hurry, Daniel!" Akio urged,
now fully alert to what was happening.
"On my way!" The caribou replied,
grabbing his mask and slapping it back over his eyes before vanishing in a
blink of light, transporting himself back to the vicinity of the CN Tower.
The mounts of the elevator had
completely given way, leaving it dangling ominously by only its cables at the
side of the CN Tower. The five civilians inside were absolutely still, but
terrified out of their wits, barely managing to contain their terror as they
saw the fatal drop they would soon face if those cables did not hold their
combined weight until help could arrive. Three women and two men, wearing
restaurant smocks; they were employees of the tower's famous rotating
restaurant, who had been working late after a large dinner rush, cleaning up
the restaurant and the kitchens.
Now, after finally ending their
shifts that night, they boarded the elevator together so they could go home,
but on the way down the elevator suddenly fell away from its rails, and now it
was literally hanging by threads, with the five people inside helpless to do
anything about it...
Down below, police had formed a
perimeter to keep the people away in case the elevator fell while fire trucks
were arriving on scene, working to try and reach the elevator but it was too
high for even their tallest ladders or elevation cads, sitting more than eight
stories off of the ground. People at the perimeter were crying out for the
departments to save the poor people trapped in that suspended glass box.
"Chief, what do we do?" A police
officer asked his superior, desperate for answers.
"We need air support!" The chief
stated. "We need choppers up there; call it in!"
"Already did chief," another officer
stated. "But it'll be ten minutes before they get here. Don't worry though;
that elevator's held up with steel cables, and long as they stay calm they
should hold."
"For their sake, I hope so."
Suddenly, someone screamed in the
crowd. "Oh my god what the hell is that thing?!"
The officers turned to look, and saw
the crowd staring and pointing up at the tower; they followed here the people
were looking, trying to find what it was that had spooked them in such a way.
Their jaws fell agape at what they
saw.
Some kind of large, hairy creature,
was in the elevator shaft, staring out
at them through the window.
"Shine a light up there!" The chief
commanded.
One of the spotlights previously set
up to illuminate the elevator from below was then elevated to shine on the
strange creature, which recoiled from the light. The police chief raised a pair
of binoculars to look up at the creature once the light was on it, adjusting
the zoom to get a good, clear look at it.
It was an ugly, broad, terrible thing,
with a hideous angular face, pointed chin and large eyes shining yellow as they
reflected the spotlights beam shining on it. Long, pointed ears grew from the
sides of its head, stretching longer than even a rabbit's ears, and hair -lots
of hair, all over its body, matted and bristling from head to toe, covering its
feet, its long, thick arms, its ears and even parts of its face. It grinned
back at the police chief with a mouthful of fangs, and held itself to the wall
of the elevator shaft with long, curved claws on its fingers and toes, digging
into the side of the building.
Irritated by the light, the creature
unleashed a piercing shriek that was heard by everyone across the block, and
leapt from its perch and onto the top of the elevator and shrieking a second
time as it grasped the cables, causing the entire elevator to swing
dangerously, even bouncing audibly off of the building as the strange, hairy
monster added its own weight to the already endangered elevator.
"Jesus; that thing's going to fall
if he keeps that up!" The chief growled, turning to one of his officers. "Get a
police chopper up there and shoot that freak off!"
"Chief, that's too dangerous! We try
shooting that and a bullet could ricochet and hit someone in the elevator!"
"Damn it...!" The chief growled
again, frustrated by the situation; the elevator was bad enough, but now there
was a creature like something out of a freaky fairy tale climbing on the CN
Tower and using the elevator for a tire swing while there were innocent people
trapped inside! This was a situation he was not prepared for...
Suddenly, the creature looked down
at the elevator cab it was standing on, before turning and jumping off of it, throwing
itself up the elevator shaft again and slamming against the side, digging its
claws into the side of the tower and starting to climb. The act of leaping off
of the elevator sent it slamming into the side of the shaft, shattering the
glass walls and, worst of all, the glass floor in the center; one of the
waitresses would have fallen if not for a second waitress and a cook seizing
her arm before she could fall out completely, holding desperately onto her.
"Someone's fallen through!" One of
the officers yelled.
The waitress slipped free of the
grasp of her coworkers though, and shrieked in terror as she started to fall down
the elevator shaft, waving her arms and kicking at nothing but air as she
dropped, with nothing to stop her descent.
Suddenly, a blue light flashed
beneath the waitress; she felt her back touch something amidst her freefall,
and a pair of powerful arms wrapped around her torso. She then saw the entire
world seemingly light up before her very eyes, followed by a sense of vertigo
and weightlessness, as if she were being carried away by some unseen force. She
wondered if this meant she was being carried off by some unseen angel -as if
her spirit were being lifted into the heavens above...
But the vision came to an abrupt
halt as the light flashed across her eyes again; she heard a man grunt, and
felt herself jerk to a halt, the wind nearly stolen from her lungs and a
stinging pain through her back... pain was good; it meant she was still alive.
Suddenly alight with adrenaline, she broke free of whoever's arms were holding
her and scurried to her feet, looking back to find out who had grabbed her.
Lying on the grass was none other
than Warp, who after recovering from the fall, sat up. His act of teleportation
had, although saved the woman, he'd had to take the brunt of the drop after he
reappeared. Though considerably less than the fall from fifty feet in the air
would have been, the shortened drop had still managed to take some of the air
out of him, especially with another person's weight on top of him when he
landed. He quickly recovered though, and jumped to his feet just as the police
officers came running over, one of them already drawing his firearm and aiming
at Warp.
"Hands in the air, Vigilante!" He
barked.
But the other, more senior cop,
pushed down the other officer's hand. "Are you kidding me, Pete?! He just saved
this gal!"
"Bob, he's the Vigilante; he's a
wanted criminal!"
"And right now, he's about the only
one that can save those other people up on that elevator and get to the freak
that nearly cost that woman her life! Now stand your bony ass down!" The elder
cop shot back. Feeling sheepish, the younger cop backed away, holstering his
pistol while the elder cop, Bob, turned to face Warp, giving him an even look.
"That was a nasty fall; are you alright, do you need medical attention?"
"No, I'm fine," Warp assured,
dusting off his pant leg. "My suit's padded; it absorbed some of the impact,
for both me and the miss."
"Good," replied Bob. "Can you get
those other people off that elevator?"
"I can," replied Warp.
"Then do it," he said.
Warp nodded back, and turned his
gaze up to the elevator. Rapidly, he calculated the distance from his current
position to where the elevator was, comparing that along with its height and
width in contrast to the approximate size of the CN Tower. When he was certain
he had done the numbers right, he teleported, vanishing in a blink of blue
light from sight of the cop, and reappearing instantly in the elevator.
His weight, added to that of the
four still on board, made the elevator creak ominously. The others jumped a
little as the pale-clothed anthro caribou spontaneously emerged from a mere
flash of light and into the elevator. The people inside consisted of two
younger women, one of them a waitress the other a cook, one elderly woman and
one middle-aged man. Warp knew this man. He was the sous chef for the
restaurant, while the elderly woman was the night-time supervisor. The
waitresses and dish washer were new faces to him.
He held up
his hands, showing he meant no harm, and spoke softly to them. "It's alright;
I'm here to help," he said. "I can get you out of here but I can only take two
at a time. Please, you must trust me."
Naturally, the four of them seemed
hesitant to trust Warp, but give their current predicament it was only a matter
of time before they agreed to accept his help. The two youngest stepped forward
first at the insistence of the chef and supervisor; Warp held out his hands to
the two, urging them to hold on to him. They grasped his gloved palms,
clenching his hands tightly as he did theirs, and teleported back down to the
ground, vanishing in yet another flash of light, bigger than before to
encompass the two 'passengers' he was bringing with him.
Warp reappeared at the edge of the
police perimeter with the two restaurant employees in tow, letting go of their
hands before he teleported again, returning to the elevator. Unknown to the
caribou, however, the strange creature on the tower was not done playing with
the elevator; with a mad cackle it began to claw at the cable above; as unlikely
as it seemed, the claws of the hairy monstrosity seemed to actually be cutting
through the cable, weakening the last supports of the elevator. After several
clawing attempts, Warp began to feel the elevator start to sway again, followed
shortly by a jerk that nearly stole his balance and that of the two remaining
on board.
"Come on!" He barked at them,
holding out his hands to them.
Without a second of hesitation, they
grabbed his hands, and just as he felt the elevator give way, he teleported
again with the two people. The metal box fell, the broken cable trailing behind
it as it descended; fire fighters below scattered as they saw it falling. It
hit the bottom of the shaft with a deafening crash
Warp had appeared out of teleport
with the last of the restaurant employees, letting them reunite with their
colleagues. The five of them expressed their relief with hugs and gentle words,
one of the waitresses was even crying. Warp could only imagine how terrified
she was; elevator accidents were often fatal, however few there usually were
-especially on Toronto's most famous landmark.
Of course, this had been no
accident.
Warp turned to face the tower again,
eyes furrowing as he glared up the wall of the massive structure, seeking out
the beast that had wrecked the elevator; searchlights were scanning over the
tower, searching for the strange beast, but it had vanished -it could not have
escaped that elevator shaft so quickly. Before anybody could approach him
-either cops wanting to arrest him or civilians wishing to thank or interview
him- he teleported again, leaving them behind to finish up with the scene,
while he pursued the unusual monster.
He reappeared on the floor of the
observation deck; a large, circular room that ran all around the supporting central
pillar of the tower, lined with angled windows allowing visitors to the tower
to see the city of Toronto expanding for several kilometers all around them;
the view at night was enough to take your breath away, seeing the many lights
below marking every inch of the city, and the day was no less breathtaking,
granting a bird's eye view of Lake Ontario, one of the three great lakes of
Canada, as well as enjoy meals at a high-quality restaurant on the upper
levels.
Of course, Warp wasn't up here for
the view; he was here to find a strange beast.
As he took his first step, he felt a
cool draft blow around his legs, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed
his cape toss a little, swaying from an unseen air current running through the
observation deck. Lowering himself closer to the floor and risking pulling off
his glove, Warp held his hand near the concrete flooring, waving his hand over
it, detecting the direction the breeze was coming from.
There should not
have been a breeze in this room...
Putting his glove back on, Warp crept through the
observation deck, seeking the source of the draft. The windows on this level
were not supposed to open, for safety purposes; if there was a breeze blowing
through the deck, there was an opening somewhere -no doubt caused by the
strange creature that Warp was there to find.
He paused, mid-step... he thought back to the
elevator, and how it had been hanging by its cables. If the creature had
entered the building by climbing the tower, and attacked the elevator from up
here, destroying its motor or cutting its cables from above, then it didn't
make sense that the elevator had been hanging at all. That meant the creature
would've had to destroy the motors or cables on the ground first, before
climbing the elevator shaft to the point where the police had seen it. But if
it had entered on the ground level, three hundred feet below, why did Warp feel
a draft all the way up here? Cool air travelled downward, not upward...
Now morbidly curious, Warp increased the pace of his
walk, wanting to find where that draft was coming from.
"Danny, you
there?"
Warp raised his left arm, twitching his pinky to
activate the transmitter hidden on his wrist at the touch of a tiny button on
the heel of his palm. "I'm here, Akio; what's the matter?"
"You just went
silent for a while; I was getting worried," Akio replied. "I saw you save the civilians on TV, but
where'd you go after?"
"I'm looking for that creature that was in the
elevator shaft; right now I'm on the observation deck of the CN Tower. I
suspect he... it, is the cause of that accident."
"That is what
I'm thinking too. I got a look at that thing too through the camera but it was
shaky , so I didn't get a very good one; what was that thing?"
"I don't know, I've never seen anything like it,"
replied Warp, but suddenly stopped walking. "It does seem to really like
wrecking things, though..."
He had come to the elevator door, or what was left
of it. The sliding door was broken outward heading into the room, several parts
of it sheared off by something sharp and pieces were strewn about the floor,
mangled and riddled with claw marks. Seeing the pieces also led Warp to
discover the cause of the draft; one of the pieces cut away from the doors had
been hurled through a window, shattering the glass and letting in the wind, and
peering into the shaft he saw the damaged steel cable that had been holding up
the elevator, still hanging freely in the shaft an relieved of the weight of
the elevator.
"At least I know he's in the tower," the caribou
muttered to himself.
He turned.
His gaze met a pair of yellow, slitted eyes.
He felt something hit him, sending him flying
through the air followed by a mad cackle as he suddenly crashed through one of
the windows of the observation deck, out into open air and free-falling from
the tallest building in Canada!
Hollering in fright, he waved his arms as he
dropped, for a brief moment of surprise forgetting he could teleport, and then
shut his eyes, forcing his mind to focus on the observation deck of the CN
Tower again before he mentally activated his powers. With that, he disappeared
in a blink of light before he started going too fast, reappearing back in the
tower; the moment he materialized the momentum gained from his fall transferred
with him, and he hit the floor like a falling brick, stars exploding across his
vision as his head bounced off of the floor.
"Ow..." he groaned, moving slowly as he reached back
with one hand to rub the back of his head.
His fingers brushed over his antlers as he raised
his hands... and noticed something missing. Reaching up with his other hand to
feel his other antler, he found it; one of the spines on his antlers had broken
off. He rubbed over the stump where the spine had once been, and felt around
absently, looking for it, but it was nowhere to be found anywhere around him.
No doubt it was tumbling end-over-end down to the streets, three hundred feet
below to the foot of the CN tower.
Warp scowled. "Okay... now I'm pissed."
"Dan! Dan, are
you alright?!" Akio suddenly shouted in his ear, making Warp cringe.
"Ow! Ow! Yes, I'm here!" He replied as he brought up
his transmitter. "Don't yell; the receiver's right in my ear, you know."
"Sorry, but the
TV cameras caught you flying out of the tower. What happened?"
"That creature snuck up on me," replied Warp. "Broke
a chunk off of my antler."
"Ooh... how
you explaining that one to the guys at the office?"
"The usual excuse; I fell down the stairs," replied
Warp.
"Didn't you
already use that for the bruise from that baseball bat?"
"You got a better one for me?"
"Um... not
really."
"Right. Now, I'm going to find that cretin."
"Careful,
Daniel; he might jump you again."
"I'm ready for him this time."
Carefully, Warp crept back up the corridor of the
observation deck, keeping his back to the inside wall so that he could not be
launched out a window again if the creature somehow surprised him a second
time. It was better to be cautious until he knew what it was he was up against,
otherwise the next surprise attack, he might not be teleporting out of.
He arrived back at the destroyed elevator shaft, and
much to his dismay, the creature had left. Had he expected any less? He stayed
where he was for a moment to listen, ears flicking absently as he tried to
detect any sounds that seemed out of place. At first, silence; silence was
good. Cautiously, he crept over to the elevator shaft, leaning through the
destroyed door carefully and looking down the shaft, to see if perhaps the
creature had climbed down to attempt an escape, but there was no sign of it.
Suddenly, he heard it; a crashing noise from above.
He looked up the shaft, and noticed another destroyed door above; the door to
the restaurant level. Picturing the restaurant in his mind -thanks to having
been there before- he teleported, reappearing in the dining area expecting to
find a disaster zone, but surprisingly the tables had been left untouched so
far -not so for the cash register, which had been demolished, leaving loose
change scattered all over the floor, but it seemed that the creature had not
gone after the furniture.
The crash again, this time coming from the kitchen.
Warp followed the sound, sprinting through the restaurant with his cape
trailing behind him, until he reached the staff entrance to the kitchen,
leaning against the wall around the corner as he carefully peered around at the
door. To no great surprise, it had been vandalized, and as he peered around he
saw a glass jar shatter on the floor in front of the doorway, throwing the
contents across the tiled floor. He dashed through the door, turning towards
the creature. Another jar was flying at him, which he narrowly blocked with his
glove, the sound of glass hitting metal as it shattered against the bracer
concealed beneath his glove, instinctively turning his head away as the
contents exploded from the jar.
And there it was. The creature was seated over by the
pantry, reaching in with its long arms to grab the next item in sight,
devouring most of the food items while throwing anything non-edible over his
shoulder. The first thing Warp noticed about the creature was its stench; its
very presence in the room made the place smell foul -like the rotten egg smell
of natural gas, mixed with mold. Its fur was bristled all over its back,
covered in stains that Warp wasn't sure he wanted to know what they were, and
it didn't even bite whatever food it chose to eat; it simply stuffed the
morsels right down its throat, giggling like a little kid with its mouth full.
After scarfing down an entire loaf of bread and a raw steak, the creature
grunted before letting out a horrible belch, followed by a contented sigh.
"Nasty," he muttered.
Suddenly, as the hairy creature reached in to help
itself to more food, it paused, and sniffed the air twice. It looked over its
shoulder, spotting Warp with those yellow, cat-like eye, and then spun around
on its backside to look at him fully. He was perfectly still, fists raised in
preparation if the creature decided to attack him, his gaze meeting those eyes,
watching them for any sign of hostility. But his mind was still struggling to
comprehend just what he was looking at -what in the world was this hairy creature and what was it doing in Toronto? He had
never seen anything, furson or feral, that remotely resembled this creature,
leaving his mind constantly pondering the question of what it was.
The creature bared all of its teeth, raising both of
its beefy arms and slamming them on the tiled floor, cracking the tile with its
knuckles, before it threw back its head and roared as it pounded the floor with
its fists like a child having a tantrum. Its voice was scratchy yet at the same
time, sounded almost like it was gargling water at the back of its throat...
And then it spat.
A big, wade of bluish-white sludge, filled with food
particles, erupted from the mouth of the creature, soaring across the room at
lightning speed before striking Warp with a watery splat! The stuff smelled worse than the creature itself did, and
made Warp gag as the stench found his nostrils, making his head swoon.
"Ugh, disgusting!" Warp bellowed, wiping off some of
the sticky gunk and glaring at the creature. "Now I'm -ho!"
The creature sprang at him; he ducked, and it flew
over his head, slamming into the wall with bone-jarring force. Although that
did not seem to deter it from making a mad dash through the kitchen door and
back out into the restaurant. Warp turned and ran after it as it made a beeline
straight for the wrecked elevator, destroying what was left of the doors as it
left through and dropped through the shaft, cackling all the way down. He
peered down the shaft after it, seeing it digging its claws into the side to
slow its drop as it descended back to the ground level.
"Insane monster!" Warp blurted before he turned away
from the elevator and teleported, his target the yard outside of the tower to
intercept the creature.
He appeared on the sidewalk, startling a few police
who were nearby; he spun around to face them. "Everyone get back; the
creature's coming!"
"From where?" An officer asked.
Almost as if on cue, the monstrous creature erupted
from the tower, smashing through the side and falling thirty feet out of midair
and down to the ground with a thunderous crash, before running on all fours
straight at the police barricade. Officers drew their guns; Warp teleported out
of the line of fire and perched himself atop a street lamp, and they took
several shots at it, trying to stop it. Several shots missed, but three found
their marks, and the creature howled in pain before it made a mighty leap over
the cops and their cars, surprising them with how far it could launch itself.
The creature arched through the air, landing on the hood of an ambulance and
caving it in before jumping again, and running off into the night streets.
Warp reappeared from his perch, teleporting back
amidst the cops and reaching behind him to the back of his belt, only to find
nothing there. "Dammit! I didn't grab another bolas!" He cursed to himself, and
was about to pursue the creature, but it was already out of sight.
The cops were staring in the
direction the creature had gone, many of them with mystified or disgusted looks
on their faces -the latter probably having a chance to the smell the creature
when it had passed over them. They put away their sidearms, one of them voicing
the obvious question. "What the hell was that thing?!"
"A good question," replied Warp,
before he teleported away, not giving the cops the chance to turn their
attention onto him again.
~~~~~
Normally, it would be the flash of
light that would alert Akio to Warp's return to their hideout. But this time,
it was the stench clinging to Warp's uniform that told the Japanese weasel he
was not alone; he looked up from the computer he was seated at, peering over
his shoulder and spotting the caribou, along with the discoloration on the
front of his shirt as he crossed the main room to the back.
"Kuso!"
Akio exclaimed, holding a paw over his nose. "What happened to you; you smell
like garbage heap!"
"Compliments of our new furry
friend," replied Warp as he entered the back room they both called the wash
closet, when really it was like a bathroom/laundry they had built in when
setting up the hideout.
"What did he do?" Akio asked. "Kami, do I want to know?" He added, silently.
"He... spat on me," Warp called,
plainly.
"...Kimochi waruidesu." Akio muttered, before he called back to Warp.
"Try not to use all of the hot water."
"I won't," Warp promised. "Did I
wash my spare uniform day before?"
"You did; it should be hanging up
back there," Akio called.
Always smart to keep a spare.
~~~~~
There were no more sightings of the
strange creature throughout the rest of the night. By three o'clock in the
morning, Warp decided that it was time he headed home so that he could at least
get a few hours of sleep before he went to work that morning; he didn't work on
weekends, and it was Friday that day, so he could pick up where he left off
tonight. Saying goodnight to Akio, he left the Bunker, and teleported home.
Warp, now as his regular self of
Daniel Tonraq, appeared outside of his condominium after he was certain nobody
was watching, entering the building and climbing to his room on the fourth
floor. He walked down the hall to the door that led into his own house,
unlocking the door and stepping inside, letting out a sigh of relief as he
switched on the light and peering absently around the house, seeing everything
was just as he left it.
The layout of the house marked his preference for
simplicity; a small corner kitchen, a single bathroom, a small dining area and
a large living room -most of the space of which was unused, occupied only by a
sofa, a bookshelf, a television and a coffee table on the right, and a stand-up
punching dummy on the left, sitting in front of his balcony door. The dummy
bore the marks of many uses, the foam caved in in various locations, including
the top of the head which bore a good impression of the tip of Daniel's elbow.
Daniel approached the living room,
stepping onto the carpet and then making a right, coming to a lone-standing
door across from the sofa. A regular-sized double-bed sat in the room,
neighbored on both sides by night stands -the one closest to the door was
unused, while the one opposite had a lamp, an alarm clock and a half-full glass
of lukewarm water resting on top of it. On the wall opposite the bedroom door
was a 5-drawer dresser, with four small drawers and one large one at the
bottom, each one filled with a different article of clothing.
Meanwhile, the small walk-in closet next to it held
his business suits -he only had three, total, and it was also where his laundry
machines were located. An odd place for them, he always thought, but then he
learned the building was actually quite old, and back when it was built,
laundry machines were not invented yet. The closet had been renovated in order
to accommodate the new -at the time, technology.
Without another thought, Daniel took
off his clothes, barring his underwear, and laid down in bed, the mattress
feeling like he was lying on a bed of clouds as he collapsed onto it. In his
bare fur, he could smell the fur wash he'd used to get that horrible smell left
on him by the strange creature's spit, successfully covering up the rancid
stink that had seeped through his costume and right to his fur. Now at least he
knew it wasn't like a skunk smell that did not come out easily.
Still didn't mean he wanted to be
hit by it again.
Propping his head up on his pillow
he checked his alarm, making sure it was set to the proper time, before laying
back his head and relaxing until he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke later that morning, he
started his day as he usually did; a high fibre breakfast with a tall glass of
cold milk, a quick shower to help fix up his fur, getting dressed and picking
up his briefcase before heading to work forty-five minutes before he was due to
start in order to catch the next bus; his office was located in Westmount, over
forty blocks away, and the only way to get there conventionally was by bus. In
order to keep up his guise as a regular person, he did not use his
teleportation casually under any circumstance.
Besides, he had a friend that he
often met up with on the way to work.
After walking a few blocks, he
boarded his bus, and only three blocks later at its next stop, a face he
recognized boarded the long vehicle as well. The one who stepped inside was a
fox, named Colin Stanford -he was an accountant at Daniel's office, only he was
a little higher on the chain than him. However, Colin was a nice guy; friendly,
outgoing, often bought dinner for everybody on the weekend and most of all, he
was the one who had given Daniel his job with McKenzie Accounting.
In a way, Colin had helped Daniel on
his path to removing several foreign crime groups from Toronto, but he was
happily oblivious to that fact.
"Daniel!" Colin exclaimed, joyously
as he moved towards the caribou. Daniel scooted over to let the fox sit down
next to him, greeting him with a warm smile as Colin patted him on the
shoulder. "How you doing?"
"Not too bad," replied Daniel.
"What's new with you?"
"Just learned about a new client
coming in today; big name with the oil companies, and big names mean big
income," replied Colin. Suddenly his eyes darted up to Daniel's antlers, and
the caribou knew what question was coming next. "Looks like you're missing a
chunk there; what happened?"
"I... fell down the stairs," Daniel
lied.
"Again,
man?" Colin asked. "First it was that king-sized bruise on your back, now you
busted a piece off of your antlers?"
"I don't know what to say," returned
Daniel with a helpless shrug. "I was going downstairs to head across the street
last night; wanted some munchies so I was heading over to the store, but then I
slipped and fell down."
"Geez, man, you really are a klutz,"
Colin stated, shaking his head and chuckling heartily.
"I don't try to be," Daniel returned. In his mind, he laughed; he
deliberately acted like a clumsy oaf many times a day to keep up the facade of
his secret self. Everyone knew The Warp as the epitome of grace, strength, and
fearlessness; Daniel could not let himself appear that way or someone might
make the connection.
"Well for someone not trying, you
sure do succeed a lot!" Colin teased him further. "So anyway, besides falling
down the stairs -again- how were your days off?"
"Pretty quiet; used the Saturday to
clean my house," explained Daniel. "After that, spent the afternoon on the
phone with my aunt and went out for dinner that evening."
"Was it on a date?" Colin asked.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "You ask me
that every Monday; no, I wasn't on a date." Why
does it seem like, even when a superhero is out of costume, someone always
pushes him or her to pursue a relationship? He thought.
"You're what, twenty-seven years old
and you've never been on a date?" Colin asked. "You really need to get out
there, buddy; you need to find a nice lady -cute if possible, take her to
dinner, take her to a movie, and then take her on a nice little..." He paused.
"Dan boy, have you even gotten laid yet?"
Daniel gave him a stern look. "You
are pushing the boundaries of our relationship," he warned.
"Whoa, hey," Colin said, putting up
his hands. "I surrender, man. Won't push any further."
"Good," returned the caribou.
They changed topics, and continued
chatting until the bus finally came to their stop. Picking up their briefcases
the two disembarked from the bus, stepping out onto the street and walking
together up the street to their workplace; they didn't have go far, as their
office was only two blocks from where the bus stopped. A few crossings later
and they were approaching McKenzie Accounting; it had the look of a bank on the
outside, with a concrete overhang above the doors, supported by four round
pillars at the top of a short set of steps, leading up to two pairs of
double-glass doors. The reason for this was that, before it was an Accounting
company, McKenzie had been a bank, which had expanded and had need of a larger
building, relocating to another part of town. With the building cleared,
McKenzie Accounting had moved in and set up shop, handling private accounting
and taxes for the public, with Daniel himself working in the former.
Climbing the short dais to the door,
Daniel and Colin stepped into the building and made for their offices to get to
work. Daniel multi-tasked by going about his daily job tasks, but also used his
time to check the local news on the internet, looking up other possible
sightings of the strange creature that had gotten away from him last night. His
hoof-tipped fingers clicked noisily as they tapped the keys, searching for
other sightings of the creature, checking every network he could find.
Finally, he found something that
caught his eye; the sighting of a strange creature. Leaning close to the
screen, he stroked his chin as he read the report; it had first been seen in
eastern Toronto, four months ago. The report spoke of a car dealership attacked
by what appeared to be a large animal; according to security footage, posted as
still-images on the report, the creature responsible looked very much like the
one The Warp had crossed paths with the night before. The police had responded
to a complaint about numerous car alarms sounding off from the dealership, and
when they had arrived they'd found half of the vehicles in the lot had been
torn apart. They first sighted the creature running through the door into the
main hub, and when they followed it inside, it was found in the lunch room,
raiding the refrigerator for the staff lunches.
A single gunshot on the creature had
successfully scared it off, but not before it hurled a table at the cops; they
sustained no injuries, but the creature escaped, and there were no further
sightings that night. Daniel read the article with intrigue, before moving on
to the next; the unusual creature had been seen three other times, always in
the act of wrecking machinery, and had also been suspected in numerous other
machine-related acts of vandalism across the city, including at the docks and
the airport -the latter of which it had completely wrecked the engines of a
huge airliner.
Daniel pondered the attacks; what
was it about machinery that set off this creature? It was as if its entire
existence was the purpose of wrecking any kind of mechanized device, regardless
of where it was found. Curious, he saved the links and sent them to Akio via
email, after which he promptly erased any record of doing so, and resumed his
daily work...
~~~~~