Settling In (Open)

Cain chuckled at the words said by the foolish purple-bird-man and rolled his eyes the shockwave hitting the spikes surrounding him first and then the wind blowing through his jet black hair. “Is that all you got Bird Man?” He yelled out with snarl, as he let his body melt into the shadows beneath him and rose up seconds later behind the vigilante and let his fist go flying down at his back as hard as he could. His other hand was flying out in a cutting motion, his Kilij going to hopefully cut through the man’s skin but if he was able to resist the shadows under Cain’s control he figured it would sadly only shatter. The noise coming from the jumping and the smashing was very annoying to be sure, but as he was not using the shadows for any other means right now the dome had his full power going in it and there was absolutely no possible way the fools would break it down. They could keep jumping or smashing, or whatever it is they were doing, as much as they wanted for all he cared because they simply would not get in unless he allowed them too, and that was not going to happen just yet. Cain intended on at least knocking out the bird fool before allowing the duplicator any access into the shadow dome, the fool left before it was finished and outside is where he shall stay for now.
((the kilij has only three str as it is a normal curved sword))

Vlad snarled as he say yet another force blast coming out at him and this time did not have time to react and was sent stumbling backwards a little bit along with an “hmmpf.” That time he felt the force of the blow and was surprised to actually feel it as if it were a fist coming in and punching him in the gut almost knocking the wind out of him. Of course that wasn’t the end of it as next he saw the dumpster rolling out at him, though unlike last time Vlad was able to stop and hold the dumpster. He grabbed it and chucked the thing at the second ‘hero’ to appear on the scene hopping to distract him a little bit and stop those damn blast thingies he shot out of his hands. His attention once again returns to the duplicate as the words come from its mouth and Vladimir rolls his eyes in annoyance. He sprints to the man and cocks back his arm, releasing it at the duplicate’s stomach attempting to hit him, and if successful he’ll open his hand and hold it flat like a blade using his razor sharp, and durable, nails to try and cut open the stomach essentially ripping it to shreds. At least that is what he hopes will happen there is always the possibility it will not succeed, if that is true Dracula’s Reincarnation simply dives to the side, avoiding any return attacks, and positions himself to face both the duplicate and the force blaster kid.

Nightraven had been keeping his eyes on the vampire the whole time. "No, I just wanted to gauge your strength." He watched as the vampire disappeared from his view. Nightraven turned quickly on his heels grabbing his staff as he watched the vampire slash at him. He brought his staff up meeting the vampire's sword. Nightraven then threw a powerful left hook towards the vampire's face. "You became predictable when you disappeared from in front of me. Feo!" Nightraven could feel his confidence surging through his body again as when the fight first started between them.

The creature had withstood another attempt of attack against it.The creature stopped the dumpster right in it's tracks then hurled it right at him.Forcewave blasted the dumpster right back at him but by the time it was no longer blocking most of his vision he noticed that it had make it's way over to the other hero and struck at him before moving away from him.A classic hit and run style attack.It stood directly between himself and the other hero therefore making it difficult for Forcewave to attack without risking the possibility of hitting his ally.The creature's speed limited his options.Forcewave leaned his left as he looked at the creature.Then in one swift motion moved a few feet to his right so that the other hero wouldn't be in the blast path and fired at the creature again.

The original Plural stood atop the apartment building he had jumped and flipped his way up to, drumming his fingers against his hip as he watched and waited for somethign to happen. The waiting was growing annoying. It wasn't even so much the waiting that was agitating him so much as the seemingly being ignored. That was just unacceptable and rude.

"Oh just open up you wannabe vampire bitch. Or is it too dificult for you to not be a punk? I guess the caliber for real vampirism has dropped in recent centuries. Lord knows, Twilight lowered the bar. I guess even human wannabes like you can pass for a blood sucking leech these days,"called out the duplicate tap dancing on top of the dome as he pulled out two small spheres from his pockets and pressed their buttons.

The clone jumped andstomped as hard as he could before rocketing high up into the air and hurling the two concussion grenades at the spot he had just stomped on full force just as he had before with the intention of forging a wide tear in the shadow dome for it to slip through as gravity brought it back to the earth.

One of the other clones took the opportunity to find the closest light source illuminating the side of the building and bend it down to bear its oppressive brightness down on the dome hoping the light would help to drown the shadows and weaken the strength of them then he realized it was the opposite. He was manipulating existing shadows so if the light source that was producing them stopped, the shadows would most likely also recede. At the very least it wouldn't make things worse so with aniron grip, the clone ripped the light pole out of the ground and upturned it like an over large baseball bat, prepared to swing.

The original took a few steps back from the ledge, to hide his presence and mentally checked on his wayward clone and Beckie...


The clone found himself wide eyed for but a mometn as his body reacted, because the vicious and seemingly real vampire, was right in front of him, fortunately broadcasting it's attacks. As the beastly figure cocked back its arm , Plural was already in motion, twisting his body and sweeping sideways, narrowly dodging the claws as tehy extended, feeling them scrapw across the kinetic barrier acting to protect his body further feeling the pressure of the force as he used his movement to exact a spin kick, opting to stay on the offensive as the vampire ducked and twisted out of the way, retreating to a safer distance for itself.

"You're a pathetic one aren't you? Griping because you can't find somethign to eat without preying on the weak or down trodden. Relying on lowlife thugs to rape and beat your food for you. You're not a predator. You're a lowly scavenger and no one is going to just hand you people to eat. I'd gladly find someone to engineer you some sort of synthetic substitute that would be just as good if not better But I am not going to let you murder people. i don't care if you're human or vampire or a god damned rabbit, You're sentient and can follow the laws so get the fuck over it."

Cain snarled as his slash was blocked and then dodged the punch with a chuckle and smile upon his face. Jumping backwards he hears the pounding and concussion blasts upon the top of the shadow dome. “Damn it, leave my dome alone!” He yells snarling as the shadow that made up the shadow dome first implode getting smaller and tighter until it is touching the top of his head and when it gets there he throws his arms out and the shadows explode outwards with him at full power. The ‘explosion’ goes out in all directions hitting everything in its path that it can, the buildings in the area caving in and getting cut outside in, crashing down into the ground. At that Cain snarls and flairs his blood red eyes in the dark of the night, veins pumping, hear beating as he bares his fangs. “Now, you all die.” The Lord of Shadows says in a deep voice rushing out at the raven figured vigilante, ignoring the duplicator for now as he hoped the shadows took care of him.

Vladimir snarls as he misses ad stands there with his eyes on the two ‘heroes’ rolling his neck and cracking his fingers while he waits. When the blaster man moves, so does he, keeping himself between the two and then the man fires yet another blast out at him, dropping down on his stomach as it goes flying over him towards the duplication. Once it flies over him, he smirks and gets up with a slight smile on his face, “Oh shut up will you human? You do not know what you speak of and need to stay out of things that do not concern you. This world is dropping in standards and with crime because you so called hero’s take the law into your hands, because you get into things that you don’t belong in. If you mess with the natural balance of things it will bite you in the neck.” He spoke out cracking his neck as he reached down and ripped part of the concrete out of the ground and throws it at the duplication as fast and strong as he can.

Nightraven grinned as he stood back to his feet regaining his balance. He felt something shake beneath as if an explosion had went off all around them. Nightraven wanted to pay some attention to it, but he had his hands full with this vampire. He began gathering strength in his feet as he watched the vampire rushing towards him. One he could jump over the vampire and strike him from behind. Or he could take the vampire head on and knock him the fuck out for once. Nightraven choice had to be chosen quickly as the vampire neared him. He did option number one, he jumped up in the air and did a front flip towards the vampire. He twisted his body in mid air and slashed downwards towards the vampire's to where the arm connected with the rest of his body. Nightraven then landed on the ground getting into a defensive stance with his staff.

This creature was proving itself even more deadlier with every action it took.It had countered his attempt to get around it's positioning with ease causing the attack to head towards the other hero.Forcewave stopped the attack right in it's track to prevent it from hitting the guy.At the very least his ally against this thing wasn't harmed.He needed to think of a way to defeat this thing quickly.
The creature continued to talk about how both himself and the other hero should step aside so it can feed on the poor woman.This continous talk was actually starting to annoy him.Did it not realize that such a thing was not going to happen or was it simply a gambit to distract them from whatever attack it might try on them.The latter was certainly suggested when it attacked the other hero again by throwing a chunk of the ground at him.Forcewave used that very moment of it committing the action to attack it again.He didn't stop there however.He ran towards the creature from behind his attack ready to attack again.

Alright this guy has got to go. We need to move this fight or end it before someone really gets hurt or one of these buildings gets knocked down time to quite fucking around with this prick... the original thoguht as the building he stood on was shaken violently by the impact of the pitch black explosion of sorts.

He saw through the eyes of his cloens as they were flung back, one bloodied by the shredding wave, the otehr two simply hurled, one into the air and the other backwards off his feet. With a flick of his thoughts, Plural dissolved the duplicate that was almost equal with him in altitude but left the other two in existence.

He felt no pain when the unfortunate replicant was torn across the chest by shadowy shrapnel, but the thoughts of the experience flowed into hios mind. He didn't let the deluge of feelings distract him however. That was the job of that clone anyway. With the scent of blood in the air the idiot would think himself more successful and since he apparently liked to sup on the blood of superhumans, perhaps the gluttonous intentions of the guy would distract him just enough in the long run. Or short run in this case.

Retaining his balance, Captain Xerox took a running start and with coordination from his uninjured clone, the superhero flipped and twisted down from the 5 story apartment with perfect precision and timing to be directly above the ignorant pseudo-vampire as he rushed the bird-crested vigilante. The earlier actions of his clones hel;ped the ploy, because with the overhead lights for the alley abolished, the superhero cast no shadow as he fell feet first aiming to kick the bad guy. He made no noise and there was nothing to give away his strike before hand except for perhaps the whistle ofthe wind that whipped past him. Chances were that when this drop kick struck, the 'New York Vampire' would be thoroughly crippled.

As he sailed through the air, the duplicate kept his eyes wide uopen guiding the original's crushing blow but there was not to be any half-hearted attemtps at offense. With a subtle clicking like noise, it turned and landed with it's feet on the wall of another building, absorbing the shock of the impact and then sprung off in a superhuman leap full force prepared to hit Cain in the back or be dissolved into nothingness should it's efforts not be needed.

And finally on the ground, in a slowly growing pool of it's own blood, sat the last duplicate still between the wannabe and the vigilante. he was injured but not out of this fight and he was going to let it be known as he pointed his belt buckle and with an expert eye, fired the grappling line from the mechanism. The wire was so thin that in the darkness of the valley between buildings it would be nigh invisible to clothesline the attacker in his mad rush before he could ever reach the Night Raven and set him up for the drop kick of the century taht would knock the wind from his lungs and probably shatter a few ribs in the process. The effort of the small team of the same guy was in perfect timing and form as it usually was and was set up to end this fight before more harm was done.




The clone watched as the creature of the night dropped down on it's belly from some perceived attack. It was of course invisible to most spectrums but the clone's goggles picked up some sort of high speed energy source. Something kinetic but it was going too fast for him to get out of the way of but then it stopped and dissipated of it's own accord, no doubt due to something from the other nameless hero.

Without missing a beat, the duplication watched as the behemoth ripped a chunk of the earth from the ground and hurled it at him as hard as he could. For only an isntant did the makeshift hero entertain the thought of moving out of the way of the attack but then in the same instant he realized that doing so would endanger the civilians out on the street. He had little choice but he did still have a few and he opted for one, his body responding as the idea finished faster than a normal man's thoughts.

With both hands, the Plural clone pulled out two of his combat grade bouncey balls and from memory and with practiced precision, he hurled both outwards at the parallel walls around them, each ball hitting the incline as intended and then angling off directly at the vampire, full force and fast as an eye can see. With his arms spread he brought them together just in time over his head and with as much force as he could muster he brought his balled fists down on the stone and earth, smashing it to bits, littering the ground around him as the pieces that moved past struck him about his body, making him wince with their slight impact. He knew that the impact locations would bruise eventually but that was of little concern to someone so short lived. It was of little consequence and it invigorated the teenage genius behind the mask. It reminded him he was alive. it made his heart pound and his adrenaline flow. The blond felt lust for battle course through his mind and body.

It was going to be satisfying to beat this pathetic excuse for an apex predator down.

"You know, your buddy back there isn't doing so well. Maybe you two should go pack it in for the night and save yourself some more bruises. And to be honest, the reason the world is going to shit is because of low life unnatural walking corpses like you wandering the streets thinking that you can do as you please. It's our job to remind you that you can't. By the way, watch out." he said nodding his head toward the other guy who had moved into position to attack again. The ploy was a distraction all over again however as the clone pulled a concussion grenade from a pouch and threw it at the vampire's blind spot hoping to hurl it back and wound it more. Knowing that if it missed the chances of getting out of the way of the explosion were sort of slim as one of the bouncey balls came flying back up the alley havign ricocheted a few more times after it's initial pass. It's path was directly in line with that of the explosive so one way or another, his grenade was going off with a quintessential bang. he did however account for the creature's superhuman speed and was ready for another counter attack.

Cain rushed at the man as fast as he could, hearing a whistle in the wind above him but payed it no mind only to see one of the duplicates fall in between him and the raven boy bloodied and broken. It was only seconds later when he felt a kick to the head, which came from the original duplicator, knocking him off balance some and causing a curse to escape his lips. For as soon as the drop kick to his head was completed the Raven boy jumped over him and swung his staff at his collar bone, a howl of pain escaped from his lips and he fell to his knees. With a sick twisted grin upon his face he coughed up some blood and only smiled to the two ‘heroes’ before he disappeared into the night, the shadows swallowing him whole. But that of course was not all he did, when he left the shadows shot out like whips at the two vigilantes as a last resort, hopping to injure them some more, whips that could slice through even the big ‘bad’ Pain went flying out at the two as Cain himself once again got a way. Though this time he had a bit of trouble doing so, who could honestly prepare to fight one who can duplicate themselves? If it had not been for that fool he was sure the raven themed ‘hero’ would have been easy to take down.

Vladimir was not doing so well himself either, yet he was doing a little better than Cain was if only because he was made of tougher stuff than his friend. The two balls flying out at him were just barely seen and he caught one, though feeling a slight twang in his hand, the other though went flying past his head. That was something he could live with for now as it had obviously missed, taking the one he had though he chucked it right back at the duplicate as hard as he possibly could hoping it would do more damage to him than it did to himself. The words of ‘by the way watch out’ caught Vladimir off guard as he turned his head slightly only to see yet another kinetic blast coming out at him for a split second he thought it was all going to end right then and there. That is until the shadows rose up in front of and behind him, forming two neigh indestructible walls that took the concussion grenade and bouncy ball combo as well as the blast, turning them into nothing. “So long…. Maybe next time you’ll see things my way…” He whispered as the shadow walls ‘fell’ down encasing him and sweeping him off along with Cain back to their hidden apartment where no one knows the location of.

((exit post))

Nightraven watched and heard as the vampire howled out in pain. He saw the other hero land a dropkick on the vampire sending him to his knees. He watched as the vampire disappeared again. "Eh what the...? Nightraven saw two more whips coming at him and the other hero. In order to protect the hero, Nightraven stepped in front of him letting the whips tear at his back, Victor fell to his knees feeling his back bleeding out. "You owe me a huge ass favor." After taking all that damage from the vampire, Victor fell forward to his face passing out from the heavy assault he took.

Just as he was charging forward behind his own attack in an attempt to finish this creature off once and for all he had to stop and backtrack to avoid getting caught in the impact zone of the grenades that was thrown by the other hero.He just barely managed to avoid them entirely.That was not all that he witnessed.A veil of darkness came from out of the ground and formed a wall around the creature completely protecting it from the attacks that were coming at it.He heard the thing say goodbye to them as it disappeared along with the shadows.
Forcewave kept his guard up and he looked around for any sign of it.He did not want to simply think it would just leave.There was no sign of it however.He continued to look around the area but to no avail."Do you think its still around?"He ask the other hero who had been present and he had foughten alongside for any sort of answer to his query.
He was confused by the appearance of that shadowy veil.Where had it come from he wondered.Did this mean that that thing was not alone in its quest to feed on people.He supposed it would make more sense for a predator to have a pack to hunt alongside.He knew basic survival tactics.The continued lack of any sign of its presence made him start to truly believe it had retreated amongst the mysterious darkness.

Plural watched as the shadows rose up and extracted the wannabe vampire into themselves and knew he was gone just as quickly as he ahd appeared. His eyes didn't miss the motions and signs as the shadows receded and tendrils of tenebrous lashed out like vipers in an attemtp to lacerate him and the purple chested superhuman beside him.

His intention had been to duck under the whip like cords of shadow and simply evade them but his plan fell through when the other man foolishly interposed himself between the blond and the tentacles. At first Pluaral was shocked by the action but then he rationalized that it wa a common trait among heros. Self sacrifice. Sure it was noble in most cases but it was stupid in his opinion in this case.

Frowning, he nonchalantly caught the passed out guy as his knees gave out from weariness and bloodloss. "I don't owe you a thing. You've got this situation twisted. You're lucky I was around or you'd be dead..." he said to know one as the subject of his words wasn't conscious to hear him.

Hoisting the man up onto his shoulder, Plural made a superhuman leap up onto a nearby rooftop just in time to avoid the prying eyes of civilians as tehy came out of their apartment, fear and worry written on their faces. The glowing yellow haze of his dissipated clone was the only thing they could catch a glimpse of as they rounded the corner, the heroes that had the answers they were looking for, lost in the darkness of the night.

Plural stopped a few blocks away and laid the unconscious hero down on his stomach. sighing, the duplicating hero got to work stripping the man fown to his waist and assessing his wounds. The most recent two were rather deep but nothing time couldn't fix. Jusging from the sound of his lungs, only one had been collapsed but fixing that took but a moment and a needle from his first aid kit. Plural labored for almsot 20 minutes tending to all of the wounds across the man's body careful to use a gentle hand.

When he was finished he left a note with a bit of contact information, pinned to the suit of the other hero and then for good measure, took the guy's fingerprints running it through a database for his identity later. It wasn't the first secret identity he had collected from heroes he'd encountered in the field and he was sure it wouldn't be the last. it was funny how reckless heros could be with details that would give away their inner most secrets. Shrugging and taking a quick look around, Plural propped the other guy up against an air vent and then took his leave, free running his way from rooftop to rooftop, making a beeline for his clone and the other hero he'd met tonight...



"Yes I'm positive that they're gone. There were two of them and the other one just came and picked up his buddy there. My other half and anotehr guy beat the snot out of his partner and they're now running off to lick their wounds," the duplicate stated strolling down the alleyway, leading the kinetic bolt throwing hero deeper into the secluded area to maintain a more private conversation.

"You did well here. Nice work. We made a decent team it just sucks that we let an undead son of a bitch like that get away but all in a night's work right? So what's your name. You can call me Plural. Or oyu can call him Plural or whatever. Your choice really..." he said with a grin pointing with his chin to the original cloning superhero as he dropped from the rooftop and rolled his way back to his feet stopping a few feet from the pair.

The original ran his hand through his hair vigorously removing the detritus it had picked up from his maneuvor and and extended a hand to the otehr guy to be shaken, a card with some contact information hidden in his palm.

The clone stood back and watched for a few moments before dissolving into a yellowish mist twisting in the gentle breeze that pervaded the night , it's job thoroughly completed.

Victor woke up a few hours later lying on the in an alleyway. He felt like his whole body had bricks thrown at it; he sat up and saw a piece of paper on him. He read over it and saw that somebody had left their contact information. It must have been that guy that he had stepped in front of. Victor stood to his feet and began making his way back home. It had been one long night for him and tomorrow he was going to sleep the day away while his body healed. As Victor made his way back home he stuck to the alleyways letting the shadows cover his injures as he moved quietly before the sun came back up.

((exit))

And so the other hero whom he had fought alongside in the effort to stop a bloodthirsty creature from feeding on a woman informed him that the creature itself had indeed left.He did not question as to how the guy knew since he felt confident that the guy was being completely honest with him.He was not sure why he felt that way but he knew that he just did.
The guy was trying to lead him to an alleyway and forcewave went along with slight hesitation due to his reluctance to do so, his arms crossed and rather curious expression on his face though it was hidden by his mask when another one of him appeared.Or the original according to what the guy had said.So this guy had the power to make duplicates of himself.He then complimented forcewave and revealed himself as plural.He also asked for his name"Plural is your name huh?It fits I suppose when one would consider what your powers are.Mine kind of fits in the same manner.You can call me Forcewave.Also I must be going."He stated as plural offered him a handshake.

((exit))

"Well alright then. I suppose a hero's work is never done. Watch yourself out there...creeps like that guy running around and all. I figure we'll be safe from vengeance for at least the night. Maybe we'll cross paths again sometime eh?" the blond spoke, his eyes seemingly focused on his newest potential ally but in all honesty were busy deciphering and weeding through police jargon for another crime that could do with some sort of superhuman investigation.

It was true that a hero's job was never finished. No matter how hard they all worked and how many guys they put into the dirt, another one was right around the corner. It seemed like it was just human nature at its most base level that made people want to act out against the societal conventions. Poverty and anger and desperation drove people to breaking the laws or in the case of many super villains, misguided beliefs that power left one entitled to do as they pleased.

the three of them had put in some great effort that night already but it wasn't truly a success. Not in Plural's eyes at least. At least one building had sustained heavy damages from their fighting and some woman was surely traumatized somewhere, having been accosted twice in one hour. Sure she was safe now but she would never feel that way again walking the streets of her home and that was a failing. Captain Xerox needed to improve but he wasn't sure where to start. Sure he could be a lot of places at once but he couldn't be everywhere. He certainly could try but in doing so he'd give up one of his greatest advantages. He was at an impasse and he hated it.

"Be sure to give me a call if you're ever in need of some help. I'll see what I can do or you," were his last words as he gave a two-fingered salute before leaping from one wall to another,expertly climbing the building in but a few seconds to return to the rooftops, his next destination already set for a raging inferno of an apartment fire some 40 blocks south.

[Exit Thread]