The Sable Man #1: Soulless Dark (Done)

[The Sable Man]

An old warehouse in the undercity of Jewel Junction. A troop of gunmen on all sides. A few keeping watch from the old buildings on each of the street corners surrounding it. Watching for other gangs or interference wasn't the job that most of these thugs wanted, but in the JJ Undercity, it was a requirement. Too much chaos and too much aggression. The other undercity dwellers had fled the flickering light of the one electrically blessed corner before this group had shown up in black suvs and a few sports cars. Despite the fact that it was day, it was still dark here. Looking up only gave you a view of three things, while in the undercity: The many tall buildings of JJ proper, a tops of the caverns that the undercity seemed to flow into and out of at will, and a sky filled with the haze and fog and smog of Jewel Junction factories and processing plants. There were of course more active and hopping areas in the undercity, favoring loud music and neon lights to beat away the drab greyness all around. This was not one of them though. This was a ruin. The chain link fence that had gone around the property had long since been torn down and repurposed for some other location, no doubt. Around the property were four corners, one with a broken streetlight laying along the sidewalk, two who's lights were out and didn't function, and just one corner that still had a light struggling to stay flickering.

The Sable Man watched all of this in silence. He had vantage points from above, all sides, and even inside the warehouse, and it was him that they'd come searching for. They'd come searching for a man, to kill the one that had one of their newest and most "secure" arms caches. The Grey Tigers, they called themselves.... He had simply shown them that it was not secure. An associate of his had gone to their little hole of a hideout, and given everyone there a fatal beating or a bullet to the head. Another associate of his had then fed information into the field that the Sable Man was responsible for it. Once hearing that, they'd bent all their attention on trying to find him and his lair. They'd followed his breadcrumb trail, storming after it and straight into an area of the undercity that he thought was growing a little too peaceful.... The undercity gangs and associations on this side were beginning to grow complacent, and he wanted them to keep fighting. After tonight, they'd have something to get mad about.

All because the Grey Tigers had been chasing him to his "secret lair". They were so foolish and so hopelessly outmatched. He needed no lair. No place of refuge in the undercity, or the overcity. He was the Sable Man. They'd given him that name for how he worked out of the shadows, and it was appropriate, but he was so much more than they knew. He was the smog and fumes from their fires. He was the steam and smoke from their factories. He was the exhaust from their cars. He was the smoke from their cigarettes. He was this city, whether they understood it or not, and there was no safe place from his eyes and ears.

[The Sable Man]

Sable watched as the Grey Tigers circled the place. It looked empty from the outside, but he'd picked this location for his ambush for a reason. He opened up a new vantage point from some harmless smog blowing across the street, and before long, he'd directed it nearer to the door where all the action was going down. He still watchd from the rooftop, enjoying the show from more than one angle now. Grey Tigers were loaded to bear with automatic pistols and shotguns, submachine guns, and even one of the everpresent tommyguns, drum mag included. He did nothing to stop them or warn those inside. He just was here to watch the chaos. Maybe help it along a little bit.

There was a crack as one of the Tigers kicked the door in, and stepped in. He immediately opened up with his shotgun, firing on the massive space that they'd see inside. The "Boom boom boom" of the shotgun filled the night, as the man stepped inside and made room for others to follow. He'd cleared out the guards on the surface floor. A few minutes later more booms from the shotgun, followed by the tommygun opening up. By the time the rest started shooting, the screams had begun. The Grey Tigers had acted swiftly and with a vengeance to attack the Sable Man. This was not truly the Sable Man's lair though. Inside, in the basement, was just another den of the undercity, if a relatively new one. A fight arena had opened here in response to the relative peace that this section of the city had begun to enjoy. It catered to those with a brutal taste. Men and women who would bet their lives for a cut of the wealth that was poured into the place by the owners and audience. More recently, it had begun including no holds barred fights, which meant that if you were one of the super powered individuals becoming more and more common as time passed, you could come here to freely exercise your strength. Sable himself had taken an interest in this. After all, strength rules, but under the current law structure it was still considered illegal. Perhaps once he began restructuring societal laws, he could work this in as one way of culling the weak and worthless from the strong and promising. Either way, the attack was about to become a massacre for both sides. Time to get to work.

Calling down the bulk of his present self from overhead, a thin haze began to descend from overhead. He focused on the gunsmoke inside the old warehouse, and used it as a vantage to track what was going on inside, but his main attention was going to be the four corners, where the Grey Tigers had set up their sentries. Slowly, the Sable Man's foggy mist continued to descend on the area, and before long, he inundated the block. He became aware of everything there. Of the dogs fighting over dumpster scraps outside a run down flophouse nearby. Of the drunk who'd been thrown out of the bar nearby. And of the watchers at the corners of the block around the warehouse. He smiled thinly. These men would die. THere would undoubtedly be survivors, but there could be no witnesses to him. Resting a brief moment, he shaped a few of his cloudlings in his mind, and then "breathed out." That was the closest that he could come to describing the sensation of making these, his.... minions. They looked average for a man in every way as they took shape at one of the corners and set on the sentry there. Sable could still witness the man struggling, pulling the trigger on his gun as he was set on by three cloudlings. Bullets punched through their forms, trailing smoky wisps behind the exit wound, but they appeared unperturbed, silently beating the man to death. He left them with direction to head to another corner, before shaping two more to hit a second corner. He felt the groups of three and five converging on the third sentry, even as the man radio'd for help. It wouldn't come. The rest were inside. Through the smoke and dust that had been stirred up, he could see the inside of the fight arena. The Grey Tigers with their guns done their damage. Several people that had been watching the fights now lay dead or dying on the floor, while the gang realized that maybe this wasn't what they'd thought it was. Now they were dealing with alot more than "The Sable Man." The supers that were in the fights had been riled up, and were hitting back as hard or harder than the gunmen. There was alot of anti super sentiment around, with as popular as they could sometimes be. They were powerful. And that could be scary. Some groups were even militantly against them. He'd have to have one of his associates lay that at the feet of the Grey Tigers. Maybe he could get some more damage out of this with a little publicity stunt.

Inside the fight arena, he could see one man reaching out to attack the gunmen. His arms stretched and grew, nearly tripling his reach before his hands transformed into a pair of snake heads. He reached out, and one of teh heads snapped down on the shoulder of one of the gunners before he dragged the man forward into reach of the other. The second arm was coiling around the other and beginning to crush the Grey Tiger gunner before a friend of his started shooting at the arms. A sharp cry from the man, and twin hisses from the snake heads sounded, and they began to retract back towards the man. He drifted through the field of vision inside the arena, and saw another... thing. It was a large figure that seemed to blend with the shadows. The Sable Man could make out its movements though and see it darting around the side, getting at the gunmen. He saw it better as it suddenly rushed forward into the light, bowling over three men as it did so, and tearing into the third with claws sprouting from its hands. It was a large beast, bipedal, but prone to hunching as it ran. It had a tough hide running up and down it's large strong body, and a long muscular tail trailing behind it. Most impressive was the maw, however. Rows of glistening razor teeth in the mouth looked ready to tear a limb from someone's body. It looked like someone had meshed a reptile or a lizard onto a man's frame somehow. It roared loud enough that he heard the beast outside as guns were turned its way, shrugging off some of the bullets as it spun and lashed out with its tail hard enough the Sable heard the man's ribs crack. As it disappeared back into the shadows, he heard a whistling sound, from the basement, and felt the pieces of himself there being drawn towards the center of the room, into a circular motion. He didn't fight it, but instead rode it out, watching for the source of this phenomena. It was a woman, coated in shining crystaline armor, and with her hair frozen where it hung down her back in jagged spikes. The temperature inside the arena began to drop, and he knew that his presence there would ebb as it grew colder. Before it grew too cold for him to see, he saw a whirlwind of swirling ice shards and snow begin to form around the woman, and then with a throwing motion, she hurled the small storm at the closest Grey Tiger. Sable saw him being cut to ribbons before the storm detonated, out from the center, and the extreme cold blowing out from it cut off his awareness of the inside of the warehouse.

He'd made it to the last and final sentry position. The man there was extra alert, warned by the gunshots and the demise of his fellows. The Sable Man simply opened the door and dissoved into a cloud as he opened the door into the old building, filtering around the edges as a mist. The Grey Tiger started firing, yelling at the top of his lungs for a courage boost or to appear intimidating. Sable knew not why. He saw the shells hitting the ground. Bullets piercing the wall, what remained of the door, and the night air. Anything there should be riddled with bullets. Once his gun had emptied, he looked... relieved. He wasn't dead, and whatever was out there probably was. That was when the Sable man came together right in front of him, bare inches from the man, reached up with an open palm, and crushed the man's throat in his grip. Barely a whisper of surprise exited the man's mouth as his windpipe collapsed, and there was a brief helpless struggle against the Sable Man. Sable let it go on for a moment, then put an end to it by twisting the man's head around backwards before letting the lifeless body drop to the ground without even a flicker of remorse. This was part of his grand test and great goal to change the city, and this man's life belonged to the Sable Man to spend for that purpose as he saw fit.

He still heard the sounds of chaos from the basement of the warehouse, and there would still be a few people around the cars that he'd have to deal with. He would have to pick up the pace to make certain that it was done quickly enough.... He wanted to see inside the warehouse again though. Gathering up more of himself, he began to direct a small bit of his cloud into the warehouse, and down into the basement, fighting against the colder temperatures as he went. Now he had more of his concentration and strength behind it, however, where as before he'd only been stepping into what was already there.... While he did this, he walked up to the window of the building he'd cleared out, and looked out at the Grey Tiger's motorcade there. That looked like a job for his associate, Noxious.

[The Sable Man]

The Sable Man took a deep breath, and then "breathed out", setting aside some of his personal essence, and allowed it to form his familiar servant, Noxious. Like Cloudlings, Nox's existance was tied to the Sable Man's mind and will, but unlike the basic and simple minded Cloudlings, Nox was a definite personality of his own. Or perhaps a segregation of part of the Sable Man from the main body. Nox was taken from the Sable Man's being, and he answered to the master. While Sable was dispassionate in violence and would seek to bind people to order, Nox relished the destruction that he wrought. He loved the fear and the destruction that he could unleash. A part of the Sable Man was disturbed that this mindset was a piece of his nature, but it was the minority and it was a weapon he could use. A dangerous tool, but a tool just the same.

Nox took shape as a large man, all in shades of black and grey. tough jeans and a rough biker jacket. A long mop of black hair, a full beard, trimmed but rough, and dark sunglasses. There was a reason that blacks and greys dominated his color scheme. Noxious had one purpose: to break things. And such a narrowminded focus did not leave an excess of room for creativity. The Sable Man preferred the same color pattern, but only because he saw no need or reason to change what form he took. Regardless of the colors chosen though, Nox had proven effective at finishing his jobs, and had a sort of wicked cunning at times.

"Noxious. Go and break the Grey Tiger's cars. Kill near them." There was a small smile that formed on the bigger man's face. He loved these kinds of jobs. "Stay human though." A touch of a frown twisted his lips as he looked back at the Sable Man before he growled and turned back. 

"Fine. I'll do it." Sable watched as Nox started off at a walk, then quickly shifted into the high gear and took off at a breakneck pace towards the cars, ripping what was left of the door off it hinges as he went. Sable ambled slowly out the door behind his assosciate, still turning his attention inside the basement. It looked like the Tigers were getting the worst of it now and were trying to beat feat out of there. Somehow the blizzard woman had cornered them on the wrong side of the room though. She stood in her icy armor, and behind an ice wall, hurling bluish white crystals at them from behind her fortress. He smiled at the profuse use of swear words flying through the room.

"Couldn't even clean yourself up this morning before starting your crime spree today, could you!" The Sable Man spun, looking up sharply at the voice, not his own. Above him, was a man in a green and black jumpsuit, grappled to the side of the building that Sable had just walked out of. He had some strange guantlets and was carrying an assortment of daggers, needles, and fighting knives strapped across his back, sides, and legs. Some kind of goggles were propped up on his head, leaving his eyes free of interference for now. Those were the only thing visible of his skin though. He was hanging from a cable attached to some kind of grappling hook that had penetrated into the brick of the building. Sable glanced down at his own appearance. It Did look like he'd just pulled himself from bed. The half tucked in button down shirt. The wrinkled slacks. The loose necktie. "You're him. Aren'tcha. The Sable Man."

Sable looked back up at the man, and searched his memory. This man shouldn't be alive. He'd learned of him while researching the city. Before he'd decided to set up shop, a figure known as Headhunter had roamed the Undercity. He'd been an assassin of sorts, but the only targets he would accept had been crime lords and their ilk. This had led to speculation about his reasons, and the public had never truly been able to make up their mind on whether he was a hero, or just a hitman with very specific stringent rules.... He'd died supposedly on his last mission, but perhaps he'd just retired. During his most active period, he'd had the underworld on the run, but he'd left it before it had reached critical meltdown. The Sable Man had studied many of his activities before initiating his own concern.

"Headhunter.... To what do I owe the pleasure?" Sable's voice was soft and polite, but not warm as he spoke up to the figure on the wall. He would wait and see where this went. He had the patience to do so, and this man had sparked his curiosity.

"Well, I'm sorry if I brought you any pleasure. I just thought that you might need a word of advice, ya see, Son. You're doing it wrong. I've killed plenty of baddies in my time, but you're just makin' it worse. I thought I was done with this life, but I thought I'd come out of retirement so I could show you the err of your ways. Tough luck, Kid." Headhunter pointed a guanlet'd arm at the Sable Man, and Sable merely cocked his head lightly to the side to watch. He felt the man raise his arm through the haze all around them in the area. He felt the hissing of four darts come shooting out of the guantlets. He felt the darts hit. Felt the toxin injecting into him.... and felt it fall straight to the ground through him. He felt no pain: his body wasn't truly flesh and blood, but merely a cloud bound together in the form of man by his will.

When the Sable Man glancing curiously down at the darts was the only response, Headhunter looked surprised, shocked, and then angry. As Sable slowly pulled one of the darts out of his chest, Headhunter leapt down at him, blades extending off of his guantlets, and now wielding a large dagger in each hand. Sable's head was turned to inspect the dart, but he didn't need to turn that crude manifestation of his being to perceive his surroundings. Using the haze around them, he nudged Headhunter a little as the man leapt through the air at him, guiding him directly into his iron grip as he extended his arm and caught the retired vigilante by his shirt. He held him aloft for a moment, still looking at the dart in his hand, letting Headhunter fruitlessly stab him in the body, and arm over and over again. Each time, a few wisps of black smoke peeled away from the blades as they pulled out, but that was all.

That was the first time that I can remember anyone wishing me any kind of luck since I stopped working with the police and the lawmakers of this city. So I thankyou for that, even if it was 'tough'." The Sableman held the dart in the palm of his hand, and it seemed to melt into his form. He'd keep it for later and decipher what it was made of. Then he brushed the remaining three darts out of his chest without another thought. "They fear what is necessary to establish true order, you see. And because they will not act, their efforts at peacekeeping are doomed to fail. The truth of the matter is, Headhunter. You will all fail. But not me."

Headhunter had stopped struggling once he'd realized that it was useless. Or perhaps it had something to do with a lack of oxygen as Sable had switched his grip to the man's throat.

"Go to hell!" Headhunter managed to grouse out past the Sable Man's tightening grip.

"I don't think there's a soul left in me to make the trip." With that he pulled back and hurled the old assassin forward across the ground, watching the man roll and skid across the concrete. Across the way, he heard a crash of a body bouncing off of one of the cars outside the warehouse. A few minutes later, he heard the first of the cars explode. Noxious was hard at work, it seemed.... If the car was exploding though, it probably meant that he'd gone off the reservation a little and was using his powers. The same powers that Sable would have to release in a moment to deal with headhunter.

[The Sable Man]

Noxious never felt so alive as when he was crushing, breaking, stomping, or killing other living beings to death. Yes. Killing was his job. Brutalizing was his hobby. When his master, the Sable Man had told him to kill all the Grey Tigers staying with their little parade of vehicles, he'd been happy. Only the restriction from going using his true power... from unlocking his true potential put a shade on things.... That was ok. He'd make do with whatever he could get. He'd taken off at a run towards the cars, bounding steps pushing him faster and faster. They'd heard him coming before he'd gotten there, and turned to see him rushing them from the street. They'd not wasted any time unloading their guns on him, and the swift ratta-tat-tat of their weapons filled the air in front of him. Soundwaves rocked through him, and he could feel the origin points of the weapons firing at him. He felt a few bullets tear through him, and he fought the urge to laugh maniacally at how helpless they were against him. So much for guns making all men equal. Still, he had appearances to keep up.

Quick as a cat, Nox rolled to the side, seeming to move faster and farther than what looked possible. He was picking up speed, and came up on the other side of a car from the gunners shooting at him. There were three of them, and he'd already found their locations when they'd shot at him. One of the men was just on the other side of the car that Nox was sheltering behind. He could practically taste the man's fear as a cloud around him, and the brutalizer was looking forward to proving it justified. Silence reigned in the absence of the gunshots as Nox waited, savoring the building suspense. He listened. He could hear the man's breathing on the other side of the car. Hard, scared breathing. He heard feet shuffling. He heard sweaty palms gripping and regripping their guns. He focused in on that: Symptoms he was the cause of.... He smiled.

"Did we get him?" He heard the voice calling from further back around the motorcade. He waited for the answer from the man a scant few feet from him, on the other side of the car.

"... Nahh, I don't know man.... It got real quiet." Heheheh.... No one would want to look down this looking glass.

The first voice was quiet for a moment, then: "Go look."

That was the signal Nox had been waiting for. He hopped up, sliding unnaturally swiftly across the hood of the car, and caught the near man by his shirt. He pushed past the man faster than the blink of an eye, dragging his first victim along and slamming him into the back of an SUV and crumpling the back as he went for the second voice. The first man's body didn't fare as well as the SUV door had. He reached the second voice, and grabbed the end of the rifle, raising it skyward just as the man squeezed off a few rounds. He gave a snarl of a smile to this man, and forcefully ripped the gun from his grip, throwing it away.

The man's eyes widened with fear as he suddenly realized that he'd just been disarmed, and staring up into the eyes of the man towering over him, grinning wickedly down at him showed him a vision of the nightmare still to come. "Oh Shi-"

Nox's fist came down hard on the man, bouncing him hard off the ground. Hard enough that he rebounded a little bit, in fact. He kicked the man in the ribs, and was rewarded with an audible crack and a scream of pain from the man on the ground. He reached down, and picked the man up by his shirt, hoisting him into the air before slamming a fist into the man's head hard enough that his shirt tore off, and dropped him back to the ground. Nox wasn't deterred, and wasn't finished yet. He reached down for the man again, grabbing him by an already broken head and hoisted him skyward. And that was when a noise attracted his attention. The sound of one of the cars starting. He turned his head, and looked towards the sound, before floodlighty lit up in his face. He growled at the blinding light and shielded his eyes, then heard the tires start squealing on the asphalt. He hauled the man he was beating mercilessly over, and through him in front of the car as someone would put a shield between them and harm. Not because he was particularly worried, but because it would hurt the man even more. Then he felt the force of the engine slamming the vehicle into him. He and his victim were thrown backwards, and he felt himself land on another of the cars. There was an audible crunch as the body in front of him was crushed by the impact, and Nox's upper torso was bent over and slammed into the hood of the SUV. He didn't move right away, He could feel his lower body had swirled away as smoke being dispersed by a passing car, but it was already reforming under him again. Even so, he waited. Waited for the sound that he knew would come.....

The door opened. He let out a yowl of excitement and hauled himself up onto the front of the car, leaping for the man inside. He reached out, and hauled the man forward, crushing the man's chest against the corner where the door opened, and watched as the man spit out a cigar he'd been chewing on. The embers flamed red as it fell, and Nox's face broke out into a manic smile as he raised his fist.

Fwoooooom! Suddenly one of the cars went up in flames, burning brilliantly, and throwing Nox forward off of the car, last victim still gripped in a vice grip as he went flying. They hit the ground, and Nox found that he felt a little stunned, but stronger than he had before. The heat from the blast had given him a power boost, and now... now he could set to work. He crawled for the last man, who responded by desperately pulling a hand gun and firing ineffectively at Noxious. The screams and the sounds of dull thumps made with his body hitting the ground a moment later were a testament of his failure to saving himself.

- - - - -

The Sable Man returned his attention to the here and now of the situation. Noxious had the situation well enough in hand.... He was still curious about what was going on in the basement of the warehouse, but it wasn't truly his concern. Headhunter was running, and he needed to attend to that. He supposed he could trust Noxious with the next portion of the plan.

The Sable Man's voice spoke from the fire and the smoke near Noxious, coming from the burning SUV and car. Nox wasn't quite ready to turn his attention to it, but he knew the consequences of trying his master too much.

"Noxious. On the rooftop across from the entrance to the warehouse, you will find explosive charges that were taken from the Grey Tigers' hideout before we disposed of it. Go and get them, and set them at each corner of the warehouse. Once that is done. Press the activation switch on the remote, and they will all detonate."

Nox let the body of his last victim drop to the pavement, frowning towards where he'd heard the voice come from. It was pointless to try and see his Master. He was everywhere. Everywhere there was smoke, so why did it matter where he looked?

"...Consider it done." Noxious growled out in his deep basso. He turned and looked towards the building, and then started running for it. He wasn't going to use the stairs though. Forget that! He'd run to the back and just fly up.

With that avenue of his plan started, the Sable Man scratched at his scraggly beard, and shifted his attention to moving to pursue Headhunter. He'd let the man run for a little bit, then reel him back in.

[The Sable Man]

Noxious made his way to the back of the building the Sable Man had indicated, and stopped, staring up at the roof ledge of what might have been an old worn apartment building at one time. He was in a narrow alleyway between it and another building nearby, and needed to get to the top to reach the charges he'd been instructed to find. As he looked up, the ruggedly burly man seemed to dissipate. Starting with his feet, the man seemed to dissipate into a cloud racing upwards until he reached the top and went over the ledge. He reformed at the top, and quickly scanned the rooftop. It wasn't hard for him to find the bundle, tucked into a corner. He moved to it quickly, not wasting any time, and picked it up. That prompted him to stop for a moment. Within a few minutes, the warehouse below would be leveled, and those inside would be caught in the ruins. Some would probably survive, but if they did, Nox hoped that their paths would cross someday. He wanted to fight them. He wanted to break them into pieces before he snapped their minds with just how much pain he could inflict. He'd had the best of instructors at learning that, after all....

- - - - - -

Headhunter ran through the streets, breathing hard. He picked some of his old haunts to travel through. The best paths may go away with time, but he knew these areas inside and out. He was getting too old for this. He'd been too old years ago, but he'd thought that he could stop this gang war by killing off the one who kept perpetuating it. He'd followed the rumors of major gang activity for months, before hitting on this. And then he'd known: He'd find the Sable Man here. The man seemed to strike wherever a peace tried to blossom in the underworld, and the area where the Grey Tigers were charging into fit the bill. With them so mad at the Sable Man from his recent activities, it was clear enough for him that this was worth checking into.

Unfortunately, he'd been wrong.

Oh, he'd found the one alright, but he'd utterly failed to kill him. The man was much more than a man. A meta, obviously. And a powerful one. The Sable Man had casually flung him aside, as though he was a waste of time. Him! Headhunter! Skourge of the criminal underworld from years ago.... He needed to get out of here, and reassess the man. Find a weakness. Find his base. Find anything that would give him more information.... Headhunter shook his head again. The man hadn't even flinched at his darts. Each loaded with a different powerful toxin. The man should have been writhing in agony, delerious, and unable to move from a powerful paralytic. The fourth dart should have stopped his heart within a few seconds. It hadn't even phased him.

He ran for an old fire escape, throwing one of his his knives with enough force to jar it down so he could start a climb. Just as he neared it though, he felt something dart through his legs, and trip him up. The retired vigilante hit the ground, tumbling and rolling before instinctively flinging a narrow bladed dart at where his senses said whatever had tripped him had went. When he rolled to his feet and looked at what he'd thrown his weapon at, he saw the rattily dressed Sable Man, twirling the knife in his hand before casually tossing it away.

"I wasn't finished with you yet, Headhunter. I had something I wished to show you." That calm voice from the Sable Man grated on Headhunter's nerves. This figure seemed... so calm and composed. Polite company, but also had a feverish surety in his voice. Those were always the worst sort. Always convinced of their own righteousness and never considering that what they sought might just be plain bad. Why should they care though? Whether guided through selfishness or through arrogance, this man wasn't about to step aside from his goals.

Headhunter stood slowly, pushing himself to his feet and warily keeping an eye on the Sable Man as well as his other surroundings. Without addressing the man, he threw out a small globe that hit the ground, and exploded with a small flash. Smoke poured from it, obscuring sight of his escape again, as he ran down another alley, perpendicular to the one he'd running before. He'd taken about fifteen strides before he felt something slam into his back and throw him bodily against the ground. The force was massive and he tumbled a few times before coming to rest. His body armor took the brunt of it, but his head was still spinning as he groaned and tried to shakily get to his feet. He saw the Sable Man approaching at a swift walk, and quickly got to his feet, stretching out an arm towards the man. One arm shot out a short volley of spikes from his gauntlet, and he watched them embed themselves in the Sable Man with as little effect as the darts had had on him earlier. He didn't even slow down. With the other hand, he reached down to his belt, and hit a switch. On his back, a grappling hook shot out and stuck itself into one of the walls nearby high in the air before a cable began to rapidly retract back into its casing. He felt himself bodily ripped backwards into the air by his emergency exit, before he hit the right height and threw out another cable onto another wall nearby. An automated system cut the cable from his back, and now he found himself swinging down from the second cable, and away from the man, arcing through the air as gravity and forward momentum gave him the escape he needed. He hit the ground running again, and looked up.

Looked up in time to be knocked flat on his back by a black mass coming down out of the air. Standing in front of him again, arms crossed over his chest, and looking smug, was the Sable Man. "Let's go, shall we?" He made a small quiet comment, before taking a step forward, and seeming to completely break into mists and clouds. The next thing he knew, the clouds were surging towards him and then he felt himself being first dragged along the ground by them, then carried aloft. Something seemed to be gripping him around his waist. Legs. Arms.... It seemed to constantly be in flux and motion, and he dared not trigger his suits spikes for fear of hurting himself in the tumble. Besides. Nothing like that had exactly seemed effective so far. He braced himself for where he'd stop, and predictably, he hit the ground hard. He couldn't even manage a roll to his feet this time. He just landed where the Sable Man put him and stayed there, head ringing from the impact. He couldn't be sure that he hadn't broken some ribs in the fall that time. He felt himself being hauled to his feet by part of the back of his suit, before being roughly thrown onto a ledge on a brick building. He did what he could to keep from crying out, but even he had limits in pain tolerance. This Sable Man had slammed him into the ground, dragged him along the rubble strewn undercity floor, and then thrown him to the ground once more. And he'd done it without even being bothered, apparently.

"I just wanted to show you, Headhunter." The Sable Man spoke up from behind him. Coolly impassive as Headhunter leaned heavily on the ledge next to him.

"This is chaos." The Sable Man gestured grandly with an open hand down in front of them, where the warehouse and the remains of the Grey Tiger's motorcade remained. They were back where the events here tonight had started.

"And this is strength." The Sable Man closed his fist, and as if on cue, four explosions rocked out from all sides of the warehouse below. The building they were on top of shook. There was a shrieking sound of metal shearing as they witnessed the warehouse below collapsing in. Another few explosions seemed to go off, and a fire burst into being from inside the warehouse, as Headhunter witnessed it. He knew now. The Sable Man had intended this all along. Grey Tigers had been lured here in hopes of striking at this very man, but the warehouse they'd struck at wasn't his. It belonged to one of the gangs on this side of the undercity. One that had just reached a more "settled" status. A point where there weren't gunfights in the streets every day. Now, whatever their role in this truly was, the Tigers would be blamed, the ones who owned the warehouse would have to retaliate, and the other gangs in this area would see their chance to step it up again. The fighting wouldn't cease.

The Sable Man's voice spoke up again from beside him, as he looked on the carnage. "Chaos will resume for now, but someday, order will step in and establish itself again. And when that day comes, it will be strong." He didn't bother explaining himself more than that, and Headhunter wasn't sure he would want the man..., no, this thing too do so if he could ask.

"That's all."

There was a swift whoosh of motion as the Sable Man brought down a strong arm on the old vigilante's head, and bent it over the ledge of the building. Almost delicately, he felt the motion snap the man's neck. He paused for a moment, considering what to do, and then decided his cause could best be served by leaving this man's body here for the scavengers to find. He tipped Headhunter's body, suit and all over the side of the building and watched it fall to the ground several stories below.

His work was done here. The war in the undercity would resume, and he could turn his attention to other matters and other tests. He located Noxious by the his associates signature "feel" in the area, and ordered him to return to him. "Well done, my friend. You've done as I asked...." Sable felt Nox surrender to him, and be reassimilated into the cloud of the city that was the Sable Man. Those buried in the rubble would live or die by their own merits. And they would tell stories of this night.

He was this city, whether they understood it or not, and there was no safe place from his eyes and ears. He was the smog and fumes from their fires. He was the steam and smoke from their factories. He was the exhaust from their cars. He was the smoke from their cigarettes. They'd given him that name for how he worked out of the shadows, and it was appropriate, but he was so much more than they knew.

He was the Sable Man.

-Thread End-