Post by The Circle Television Network on Jan 27, 2017 8:55:21 GMT -5
Chapter XX: Where There’s Smoke…
Knight Corporate Headquarters
Empire City
Daria Knight’s personal assistant, a demure female looking all of 20 years old, looked up as the door's to the suite slid open, "Good afternoon, can I hel..."
The woman's voice caught in her throat as she saw the hulking brute that towered over her. She cowered behind her desk as the massive half-man half-machine glared at her.
The giant looked around, then placed one of his massive hands on her desk. “Yes, I'd like to see Daria Knight...RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
CRASH
The desk in front of the woman exploded into a thousand shards of broken oak as he drove his fist through it. He glared at her. “Right now I pay you people a disgusting amount of money to ensure that I maintain a lucrative following!! MY PLACE WAS VANDALIZED YESTERDAY!! NO ONE HAS SHOWN UP TO GIVE TRIBUTE…and I want to know what Daria Knight is going to do about it…?!”
Even though this last sentence was spoken softly, she had no doubt that it contained the most malice. “Look Sir…I-I want to help you…b-but Ms. Knight is in a m-meeting right now…”
The hulking brute stood to his full height, nearly touching the nine-foot ceiling with the top of his head. “Tell me sweetheart…is the person she’s meeting with capable of turning this building into rubble with his bare hands?!” The woman continued to cower, and he took that as an answer in the negative. “Then I suggest that you go get her…NOW!!”
The women disappeared inside Ms. Knight’s office, then immerged a moment later with the woman herself in tow.
Daria glanced down at the shattered desk, then up at the massive man standing in front of her. “Kraksis…I believe I’ll have to send you a bill for that.”
The cyborg threw back his head and laughed. “Knight…you won’t be getting another denarius from me until you live up to your contract and put asses back into the seats of my synagogue!”
Daria shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? We are all in a bad patch at the moment…especially after the attack in Gateway Park, there is just so much anti-meta sentiment…”
“I AM A GOD TO THEM!” He corrected, rather forcefully.
Daria nodded. “All the same…as you are well aware, our contract doesn’t extend to compelling the masses to support you. You have to bare that responsibility on your own.”
Kraksis roared. “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT CONTRACTS!!! YOU HAD BETTER DO SOMETHING…OR YOU’LL REGRET IT YOU BITCH!!”
Daria arched her brow at the man. “Careful…I’d hate to think that you’d be stupid enough to threaten me.” She waved the man off as she turned her back on him. “Show yourself out now…you’ve taken up enough of my time here today.”
The electronic eye in the center of Kraksis’ forehead glowed even more intensely as he clenched his fists and began stalking after the CEO. “YOU SELF SERVING BITCH!! WE AINT DONE TALKING YET YOU STUPID CUN…”
Kraksis’ words hung in the air as they were the last that he uttered. Only a gurgle escaped his throat as he felt to his knees, his hands going up to the ragged hole that now spewed a mixture of blood and some milky white substance that had once sustained the cybernetics that enhanced his already enormous strength.
From behind him, Reaver stalked, flicking the gore from her clawed hand.
A low drone filled the air as the lights in the entire building flickered for a moment and Kraksis froze in place. Reaver sighed as she glanced at Daria, “I think that bloody sot was about to call you a cunt!” She shook her head with a smirk, “Filthy bastard!” She raised her booted foot and kicked the cyborg down to the floor.
The floor shook with the impact of his massive body and Daria’s assistant screamed as sparks erupted from the cybernetic implants throughout Kraksis’ body.
Daria looked over her shoulder, then arched her brow. “It took you long enough. Do you have what I sent you for?” Daria stared as Vixxxen walked in, stepping over the still sparking body, tossing the ring to her. Daria caught it and smiled as she walked back into her office and sat behind her desk. She eyed the two women, “I take it there was no problem?”
Vixxxen shrugged, “Nothing a little fire and a 10 story drop couldn’t rectify.” She looked at Reaver and the two of them shared a chuckle.
Daria rubbed her temples, “Tell me that you didn’t kill Detective Jordan…”
Reaver spoke up, “We could tell you that…but it would be a bloody boldfaced lie.”
Daria pounded her fist on the desk in anger, not that Stacey was dead, but that she would now have to listen to her brother whine and cry about it until the day he died. She looked at the two women, “Seriously, you two are like human sledgehammers!”
Reaver rolled her eyes, “Relax Ms. Moneybags! Trust us when we tell you, the pig ‘ad it coming! Now, all you ‘ave to do is say the word, and we will take care of the priest next!”
Daria raised her hand, “NO! That will do…for now.” Vixxxen and Reaver looked at one another, disappointment coloring their cheeks. Regardless, Daria didn’t want them harming her brother. Daria waived for her frightened assistant to come into the office, “Lois, please arrange payment for these two ladies, and…” she gestured towards the sparking remains of Kraksis, “…be a dear and have someone get up here and get rid of that.”
Lois looked down at the unmoving giant, then back to Daria. “Shall I call the police?”
Daria shook her head, “No…call up maintenance, maybe they can salvage some of him for scrap. I don’t care what they do with the rest.”
Lois nodded nervously, then waved for Vixxxen and Reaver to follow her out. As they left, a tall thin man walked in. The man regarded the downed giant with only a passing interest, then stepped over him as he walked into Daria’s office. “It appears as though the natives are growing restless Ms. Knight.”
Daria chuckled. “Yes Drexel…very nervous in deed. With so many people turning against Supers…Meta…Gods or whatever they want to be called this week…it’s only a matter of time before I get another call from our mysterious partner…urging me to do something to either quell or enflame it.” She sighed “I’m weary of his constant prattle! I’d sever ties with him…if it wouldn’t bring me to financial ruin.” She sneered, “He was wise to maintain his anonymity.”
Drexel nodded. “On to other matters of interest ma’am.” He smiled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a series of blurry photographs and handed them to Daria.
She took the pictures and looked over them. “The battle against the red-headed gravity witch?” She looked at the pictures, most of them of Gaia…but a few with a winged blur in them. Daria raised her eyebrows. “The Angel of Empire City…? Not particularly photogenic…”
Drexel shook his head, “No…but trust me, you’ll find the last photo clear enough I’ll warrant.”
Daria tossed aside all but the final photograph. She stared at it for a long while, then looked over at his manservant. “Is this a picture of what I think it is?” Drexel nodded and Daria smiled as she put the photo down, apparently showing Gaia perched along side a blurry winged apparition days before the Coliseum battle. “Angels and Demons acting rather cozy together…my, my, my…what would my little brother think?! This is a VERY interesting development…”
Drexel nodded. “I thought you’d be intrigued.” He asked, “Will we be contacting our mysterious benefactor and apprising him of our recent findings?”
Daria was silent for a moment as he considered Drexel’s question. Slowly she shook her head, even though this was exactly what the man wanted, evidence to discredit the Angel. Once that was done, he would order her brother killed. She wasn’t ready for that extreme. “No…not just yet. I’m starting to see other possibilities now…”
She smiled as she laced her fingers in quiet contemplation.
Madison District Police Station
Empire City
Detective Jordan walked into the police station, still wearing her half burned hospital gown, covered with mud. With her own clothes blooded and booked into evidence, she was thankful that one of the uniformed officers that had responded to the hospital had a spare jacket for her. Sergeant Bradinski’s mouth fell open as he stared at her from behind his desk. He started to speak, but Stacey stared at him through her stringy wet locks of hair. “NOT a single word Al! I’m not in the mood for any more fucking pig jokes…not today!” She started to walk back towards her office, then she stopped and turned back to him. “I want you to send units over to Madison Chapel and to Knight Estates and have them bring in Brandon and Daria Knight. I need to question the both of them.” She paused, then added, “I want them to keep an eye open for a pair of rouge Metas…females, both brunets.”
Bradinski smiled a bit. “What’s their power? The uncanny ability to sling mud at half naked women?”
Stacey cut a look at the Desk Sergeant that immediately shut him up. “One has claws…claws that nearly ripped me to pieces and the other tosses fire! If you’re looking for a witness, check Empire General…there’s a nurse burned to death on the 10th floor! Anymore stupid fucking questions, Sergeant Bradinski?”
He lowered his head as he answered, “Errr…no…no Ma’am.”
Stacey didn’t stick around as he dispatched the requested units. She walked into her office and slammed the door as she collapsed down into her chair. She should have gone home to recuperate, but she was too pissed and her mind was racing over the events of the last few days. “What in the hell is the damn deal with that ring?!”
Stacey knew the answer to that particular question…in fact she had felt the ring’s power after she’d been shot during the bank hold up. The ring had saved her life but that didn’t change the fact that it had come from Anka Jarius, the woman with eyes like Gwen Parr…the eyes of a woman that could snap at any moment. Stacey didn’t like her and didn’t trust her, and as far as she was concerned the responsibility for the death of the nurse in the hospital was shared by her as well as the two psychopaths that had come after her…likely after the ring.
It was Anka’s fault that Brandon was in the middle of all of this, and she had no doubt that it would lead him to a bad end… just like his obsession with Gwen years earlier. Anka wasn’t an angel or anything of the sort…she was trouble…pure and simple. For all she knew Anka was responsible for burning down Madison Chapel…
She paused for a moment as she turned and looked at the board with pictures of the Gateway Park incident pinned to it. She looked at the ‘angel pictures’ and she noted how they image blurred whenever someone tried to photograph her. Stacey narrowed her eyes in deep thought, then she opened her drawer of open case files. She flipped through them all until she found the one she was looking for. She pulled it out and laid it on her desk, staring at the name she has scrawled across the front of the folder…
One God Church Fires
Stacey flipped open the file and looked over the pictures of burned out churches throughout Empire City. They all looked the same in the crime scene photos…so many piles of burned timber. These were the pictures that all of Empire City saw, but these weren’t all the pictures that there were. There were random pictures taken by surveillance video and pictures taken by bystanders, pictures that she had poured over endlessly when the investigation first opened. She had spent hours looking at the photographs, hoping to find something…and finally, she had.
She stared at one picture…and then another…and another…and another. The pictures were all different, taken at different times and different places but what was the same was the strange blur that seemed to be in a majority of the pictures. She had chalked them up to imperfections in the prints but now she saw that it was anything but.
She reached up and pulled the picture of ‘The Angel of Empire City’ down from her board and laid it next to the others… and the blur was practically the same. Stacey’s breath caught in her throat. Anka or Hexx or whatever the fuck she called herself had been at the One God Church fires…there was no mistaking it.
She pounded her fist on the desk as she looked at the clock. It had only been a few minutes since the patrols had been dispatched to pick up Brandon and his sister. Now she did her best to will them there faster.
Stacey hadn’t trusted Anka from the start and now she knew why! The woman…if you could even call her that, was bad news. The trick was to make Brandon see it before it was too late…
EPISODE CREDITS
CAST (In order of appearance)
Lois [Monroe] … Trixie
Kraksis … Yohan Thornburg
Daria Knight … Missy
Reaver … Melissa Reaves
Vixxxen … Katie Anderson
Drexel … Oliver Mann
Detective Stacey Jordan … Nina Stokes
Officer Bradski … Todd Berryman
Directed by … DubbleFC
Screenplay by … Ron B.
Produced by … CTN Television Studios
Casting by … Maleek Raheem
Music by … Guilty Pleasure
Knight Corporate Headquarters
Empire City
Daria Knight’s personal assistant, a demure female looking all of 20 years old, looked up as the door's to the suite slid open, "Good afternoon, can I hel..."
The woman's voice caught in her throat as she saw the hulking brute that towered over her. She cowered behind her desk as the massive half-man half-machine glared at her.
The giant looked around, then placed one of his massive hands on her desk. “Yes, I'd like to see Daria Knight...RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
CRASH
The desk in front of the woman exploded into a thousand shards of broken oak as he drove his fist through it. He glared at her. “Right now I pay you people a disgusting amount of money to ensure that I maintain a lucrative following!! MY PLACE WAS VANDALIZED YESTERDAY!! NO ONE HAS SHOWN UP TO GIVE TRIBUTE…and I want to know what Daria Knight is going to do about it…?!”
Even though this last sentence was spoken softly, she had no doubt that it contained the most malice. “Look Sir…I-I want to help you…b-but Ms. Knight is in a m-meeting right now…”
The hulking brute stood to his full height, nearly touching the nine-foot ceiling with the top of his head. “Tell me sweetheart…is the person she’s meeting with capable of turning this building into rubble with his bare hands?!” The woman continued to cower, and he took that as an answer in the negative. “Then I suggest that you go get her…NOW!!”
The women disappeared inside Ms. Knight’s office, then immerged a moment later with the woman herself in tow.
Daria glanced down at the shattered desk, then up at the massive man standing in front of her. “Kraksis…I believe I’ll have to send you a bill for that.”
The cyborg threw back his head and laughed. “Knight…you won’t be getting another denarius from me until you live up to your contract and put asses back into the seats of my synagogue!”
Daria shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? We are all in a bad patch at the moment…especially after the attack in Gateway Park, there is just so much anti-meta sentiment…”
“I AM A GOD TO THEM!” He corrected, rather forcefully.
Daria nodded. “All the same…as you are well aware, our contract doesn’t extend to compelling the masses to support you. You have to bare that responsibility on your own.”
Kraksis roared. “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT CONTRACTS!!! YOU HAD BETTER DO SOMETHING…OR YOU’LL REGRET IT YOU BITCH!!”
Daria arched her brow at the man. “Careful…I’d hate to think that you’d be stupid enough to threaten me.” She waved the man off as she turned her back on him. “Show yourself out now…you’ve taken up enough of my time here today.”
The electronic eye in the center of Kraksis’ forehead glowed even more intensely as he clenched his fists and began stalking after the CEO. “YOU SELF SERVING BITCH!! WE AINT DONE TALKING YET YOU STUPID CUN…”
Kraksis’ words hung in the air as they were the last that he uttered. Only a gurgle escaped his throat as he felt to his knees, his hands going up to the ragged hole that now spewed a mixture of blood and some milky white substance that had once sustained the cybernetics that enhanced his already enormous strength.
From behind him, Reaver stalked, flicking the gore from her clawed hand.
A low drone filled the air as the lights in the entire building flickered for a moment and Kraksis froze in place. Reaver sighed as she glanced at Daria, “I think that bloody sot was about to call you a cunt!” She shook her head with a smirk, “Filthy bastard!” She raised her booted foot and kicked the cyborg down to the floor.
The floor shook with the impact of his massive body and Daria’s assistant screamed as sparks erupted from the cybernetic implants throughout Kraksis’ body.
Daria looked over her shoulder, then arched her brow. “It took you long enough. Do you have what I sent you for?” Daria stared as Vixxxen walked in, stepping over the still sparking body, tossing the ring to her. Daria caught it and smiled as she walked back into her office and sat behind her desk. She eyed the two women, “I take it there was no problem?”
Vixxxen shrugged, “Nothing a little fire and a 10 story drop couldn’t rectify.” She looked at Reaver and the two of them shared a chuckle.
Daria rubbed her temples, “Tell me that you didn’t kill Detective Jordan…”
Reaver spoke up, “We could tell you that…but it would be a bloody boldfaced lie.”
Daria pounded her fist on the desk in anger, not that Stacey was dead, but that she would now have to listen to her brother whine and cry about it until the day he died. She looked at the two women, “Seriously, you two are like human sledgehammers!”
Reaver rolled her eyes, “Relax Ms. Moneybags! Trust us when we tell you, the pig ‘ad it coming! Now, all you ‘ave to do is say the word, and we will take care of the priest next!”
Daria raised her hand, “NO! That will do…for now.” Vixxxen and Reaver looked at one another, disappointment coloring their cheeks. Regardless, Daria didn’t want them harming her brother. Daria waived for her frightened assistant to come into the office, “Lois, please arrange payment for these two ladies, and…” she gestured towards the sparking remains of Kraksis, “…be a dear and have someone get up here and get rid of that.”
Lois looked down at the unmoving giant, then back to Daria. “Shall I call the police?”
Daria shook her head, “No…call up maintenance, maybe they can salvage some of him for scrap. I don’t care what they do with the rest.”
Lois nodded nervously, then waved for Vixxxen and Reaver to follow her out. As they left, a tall thin man walked in. The man regarded the downed giant with only a passing interest, then stepped over him as he walked into Daria’s office. “It appears as though the natives are growing restless Ms. Knight.”
Daria chuckled. “Yes Drexel…very nervous in deed. With so many people turning against Supers…Meta…Gods or whatever they want to be called this week…it’s only a matter of time before I get another call from our mysterious partner…urging me to do something to either quell or enflame it.” She sighed “I’m weary of his constant prattle! I’d sever ties with him…if it wouldn’t bring me to financial ruin.” She sneered, “He was wise to maintain his anonymity.”
Drexel nodded. “On to other matters of interest ma’am.” He smiled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a series of blurry photographs and handed them to Daria.
She took the pictures and looked over them. “The battle against the red-headed gravity witch?” She looked at the pictures, most of them of Gaia…but a few with a winged blur in them. Daria raised her eyebrows. “The Angel of Empire City…? Not particularly photogenic…”
Drexel shook his head, “No…but trust me, you’ll find the last photo clear enough I’ll warrant.”
Daria tossed aside all but the final photograph. She stared at it for a long while, then looked over at his manservant. “Is this a picture of what I think it is?” Drexel nodded and Daria smiled as she put the photo down, apparently showing Gaia perched along side a blurry winged apparition days before the Coliseum battle. “Angels and Demons acting rather cozy together…my, my, my…what would my little brother think?! This is a VERY interesting development…”
Drexel nodded. “I thought you’d be intrigued.” He asked, “Will we be contacting our mysterious benefactor and apprising him of our recent findings?”
Daria was silent for a moment as he considered Drexel’s question. Slowly she shook her head, even though this was exactly what the man wanted, evidence to discredit the Angel. Once that was done, he would order her brother killed. She wasn’t ready for that extreme. “No…not just yet. I’m starting to see other possibilities now…”
She smiled as she laced her fingers in quiet contemplation.
Madison District Police Station
Empire City
Detective Jordan walked into the police station, still wearing her half burned hospital gown, covered with mud. With her own clothes blooded and booked into evidence, she was thankful that one of the uniformed officers that had responded to the hospital had a spare jacket for her. Sergeant Bradinski’s mouth fell open as he stared at her from behind his desk. He started to speak, but Stacey stared at him through her stringy wet locks of hair. “NOT a single word Al! I’m not in the mood for any more fucking pig jokes…not today!” She started to walk back towards her office, then she stopped and turned back to him. “I want you to send units over to Madison Chapel and to Knight Estates and have them bring in Brandon and Daria Knight. I need to question the both of them.” She paused, then added, “I want them to keep an eye open for a pair of rouge Metas…females, both brunets.”
Bradinski smiled a bit. “What’s their power? The uncanny ability to sling mud at half naked women?”
Stacey cut a look at the Desk Sergeant that immediately shut him up. “One has claws…claws that nearly ripped me to pieces and the other tosses fire! If you’re looking for a witness, check Empire General…there’s a nurse burned to death on the 10th floor! Anymore stupid fucking questions, Sergeant Bradinski?”
He lowered his head as he answered, “Errr…no…no Ma’am.”
Stacey didn’t stick around as he dispatched the requested units. She walked into her office and slammed the door as she collapsed down into her chair. She should have gone home to recuperate, but she was too pissed and her mind was racing over the events of the last few days. “What in the hell is the damn deal with that ring?!”
Stacey knew the answer to that particular question…in fact she had felt the ring’s power after she’d been shot during the bank hold up. The ring had saved her life but that didn’t change the fact that it had come from Anka Jarius, the woman with eyes like Gwen Parr…the eyes of a woman that could snap at any moment. Stacey didn’t like her and didn’t trust her, and as far as she was concerned the responsibility for the death of the nurse in the hospital was shared by her as well as the two psychopaths that had come after her…likely after the ring.
It was Anka’s fault that Brandon was in the middle of all of this, and she had no doubt that it would lead him to a bad end… just like his obsession with Gwen years earlier. Anka wasn’t an angel or anything of the sort…she was trouble…pure and simple. For all she knew Anka was responsible for burning down Madison Chapel…
She paused for a moment as she turned and looked at the board with pictures of the Gateway Park incident pinned to it. She looked at the ‘angel pictures’ and she noted how they image blurred whenever someone tried to photograph her. Stacey narrowed her eyes in deep thought, then she opened her drawer of open case files. She flipped through them all until she found the one she was looking for. She pulled it out and laid it on her desk, staring at the name she has scrawled across the front of the folder…
One God Church Fires
Stacey flipped open the file and looked over the pictures of burned out churches throughout Empire City. They all looked the same in the crime scene photos…so many piles of burned timber. These were the pictures that all of Empire City saw, but these weren’t all the pictures that there were. There were random pictures taken by surveillance video and pictures taken by bystanders, pictures that she had poured over endlessly when the investigation first opened. She had spent hours looking at the photographs, hoping to find something…and finally, she had.
She stared at one picture…and then another…and another…and another. The pictures were all different, taken at different times and different places but what was the same was the strange blur that seemed to be in a majority of the pictures. She had chalked them up to imperfections in the prints but now she saw that it was anything but.
She reached up and pulled the picture of ‘The Angel of Empire City’ down from her board and laid it next to the others… and the blur was practically the same. Stacey’s breath caught in her throat. Anka or Hexx or whatever the fuck she called herself had been at the One God Church fires…there was no mistaking it.
She pounded her fist on the desk as she looked at the clock. It had only been a few minutes since the patrols had been dispatched to pick up Brandon and his sister. Now she did her best to will them there faster.
Stacey hadn’t trusted Anka from the start and now she knew why! The woman…if you could even call her that, was bad news. The trick was to make Brandon see it before it was too late…
EPISODE CREDITS
CAST (In order of appearance)
Lois [Monroe] … Trixie
Kraksis … Yohan Thornburg
Daria Knight … Missy
Reaver … Melissa Reaves
Vixxxen … Katie Anderson
Drexel … Oliver Mann
Detective Stacey Jordan … Nina Stokes
Officer Bradski … Todd Berryman
Directed by … DubbleFC
Screenplay by … Ron B.
Produced by … CTN Television Studios
Casting by … Maleek Raheem
Music by … Guilty Pleasure