Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Tai Kwan Leap]

---

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

April 30th, 8 in the eventide by the Central Sun Transcendent. Brief complainant on protocol and objectives.

Tai Kwan: This is not the time for the fight of Truth, Justice and the Highlander way. Bury your slogans they will not serve you tonight.

“This is a criminal investigation into a kidnapping … and whether you want to hear it or not … a potential homicide. My terrain, not yours. Not in your condition, lungs like mud. Bath drain clogged from the hair falling out. The infirm do not give orders tonight.

“We do this only one way. My way. If we do not do this my way … the victim will die. Do you understand and accept?”

Hugh Kinley: I’ll do what’re ye say ye soddin’ runt. Just find me son, Tai.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant indicates acceptance of the compact. Case opened.

Sweep of the victim’s habitat yields no real leads. Leave the Garden with the complainant for Buc’s Den.

Tai Kwan speaks: Fact. The victim was abducted shortly after the 12th Night Feast. Consequently, the changeling took up residence in the Freehold posing as the victim.

The changeling recently gained the ability to absorb energy from victims as well as their physical and mental makeup. Allowing for a temporary flawless proxy. The changeling subsists on the life energy he draws from his prey leaving them deceased. In order to maintain victim’s identity long-term … Two conditions may be supposed …

One: the changeling sustained himself on other ancillary victims. Numbers unknown.

Two: He had to draw mental and physical information from the victim through repeated physical contact.

Until the changeling’s defeat and subsequent death … presumption that victim is left alive is logical. However, current status unknown.

Taking into account of changeling’s known feeding schedule, sightings as victim’s proxy, and apparent absorption of Highlander abilities … one can estimate he must have kept the victim in a 10-kilometer radius of the Freehold.

I have cross referenced all missing person reports in this radius against our operative time frame … in the end he got sloppy … first break … four abductions in the same village, presumably the changeling. He was using a fishing village as his feeding ground while he kept the victim alive.

Hugh Kinley: Stop!

Tai Kwan: Hai?

Hugh Kinley: Stop calling him victim. His name is Padruig Kinley.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Abduction victims primarily transient, except for one. Mikalia the Shepherd. Mother of two … Quiet … A bit of a party girl. A regular at the roadhouse in the fishing village.

Thin lead, and bad location. I do not like the outliers.

Stupid Guard: That circlet might mean something in town. But you are not in town, freak. We already ran off the city guard. What do you think we say to a freak like you?

Random background voices:

He doesn’t look so big.

Heard he eats people.

Wants to know about the girl.

Hell with ‘em.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

I hate the outliers.

Stupid Guard: What you gotta go privy.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

I reach out and press a few nerve clusters in his right arm.

Stupid Guard: Yea, real meat in those bones, a veritable python.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

He blinks and pauses as he realizes his arm is now numb from shoulder to wrist.

I reach out and tap him once in the forehead with a two fingered serpent strike.

His eyes roll up and all I see is white as he falls backwards, arse over teakettle.

I turn to the remaining outliers.

Tai Kwan: I wan to know everything about this woman that you did not tell the city guard, and I want it now.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

As I advance on them, I hear movement behind me and chance a look at the doorway. It is the complainant looking so sick he is now a pale shade of green. He can barely stand and holds himself up by the frame.

Hugh Kinley: A young man is in trouble, just like your friend Mike. Please help.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

As we ride away from the tavern, the complainant attempts to explain his actions.

Hugh Kinley: I am no sorry. I know ye told me ta’ wait oot here, an’ tha’ could have gone verra wrong … but

Tai Kwan: They are never afraid of you, are they? You are glowing green and sweating poison. You could break this world in two with your magics. When they see you holding yourself up in a doorway, they trip over themselves to help.

Hugh Kinley: Maybe you should try saying please, Tai.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant getting on my nerves. It might have been a bad idea bringing him along.

Worse for him. Impotent. Sick. Lost. Nothing to go on besides faith? It would drive me crazy.

Though Hugh does well with faith. Always has.

There’s no room for faith in this work. Facts. Leads. Dirty hands.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

8: 50 pm. Barricaded complainant in a privy.

8:51 pm. Entered Tim’s Opium Den frequented by Mikalia the Shepherd. Her children did not know about this, and neither did the city guards.

8:59 pm. I stand amid a pile of broken bodies. Some still moaning their resistance.

Interrogation bears some fruit. It does little to relieve stress.

Mikalia was a weekender at the Opium Den. One of those rare users who can stave off her cravings until payday – then lose themselves in a forty-eight hour binge.

She was desperate to keep her two worlds separate. I ventured she’d kept her work clothes here.

The kids will never know. Good for her.

I hear the sound of the explosion and watch as the Highlander staggers in. He pauses as he sees my work. His mouth works but finds no words.

Tai Kwan: I said please.

Hugh Kinley: Some of those men need a healer.

Tai Kwan: So do you. I’ll be damned if I take them before I take you. Do you want to stop now?

Hugh Kinley: No. But they – they’re still people.

Tai Kwan: Not right now they are not.Through my eyes – when I do this … this work … they are not people. They can’t be –

Tai’s War Journal Entry:
Complainant claps his hands together and a bolt of energy flies from his fingertips. He is predictable so I was prepared for this and deflect the majority of the blast away.

Then he follows with a slow right cross that he always follows an energy bolt with. I catch his right wrist and pivot my hip as his momentum carries him forward. I stop him from going over my shoulder.

He coughs up something green and glowing and it sizzles where it burns into the dirt.

Hugh Kinley: What the hell is wrong with you? Of course they are people! Who are you to judge?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

I grab the front of his tunic with each hand and possibly some hair as I hoist him upwards and backwards against the wall. My arms fully extended. This would be more impressive if he were not so tall. His toes are barely off the ground.

Tai Kwan: Who are you? Who Are You!

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

As I slowly lower him, I lean in whispering:

Tai Kwan: The wet pulp … sprayed across immaculate marble stairs is an abstract puzzle to be cracked – they cannot be a fifty two year old barrister who picked the wrong night to be brave.

Rope burns. Subtract the flesh and the burn, and its just information. It’s weave and fiber and time and force. It is not a 19 year old University student who lingered three days before succumbing, larynx shattered from screaming.

A bruised body no bigger than my forearm cannot – it cannot be a child. Her murderer cannot be a human being.

You cannot do … what I do … and see people. Not while the case is open. Never … because if they are … I cannot see anything else.

Only when the case is closed are they honored, mourned, reviled. Only then are they people. Do you understand?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant slowly nods his head as understanding fills his eyes.

Tai Kwan: I need you now. Your skills and magic. Focus. See clues.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant focuses and his body glows blue and red briefly and his eyes burn with black fire. He slowly raises his right hand and points.

Hugh Kinley: Dirt. I see red clay.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Five grains of red clay. Five grains. If I had his abilities, the work I could do…

9:05 pm. There is no red clay in Buc’s Den.

Supposition: the clay did not come from Mikalia’s sandals, but those of her kidnapper. Opium addicts do not hike.

Only geological match within twenty kilometers of Buc’s den is the cemetery 3 kilometers from Cove.

Three kilometers. He could have covered three kilometers in three minutes with his magics when he was well. The thought of it is killing him.

Hugh Kinley: Maybe * kaff * I should try to open a portal and …

Tai Kwan: No need, I am getting telemetry. That should help.

Hugh Kinley: But maybe I will see more * koff * I … * GAKK *

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant drops to knees in a coughing fit and spits up a large chunk of glowing green flesh.

Tai Kwan: You have gotten worse.

Hugh Kinley: I …

Tai Kwan: If we need to make an assault on a hard facility, you will be a liability.

Hugh Kinley: No … I’ll * kaff * I’ll be o * koff *

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant resistant to the suggestion that he stay behind. But parasitic poisoning will not wait for him to save the day. Knew it would come to this.

Compensating by giving him some green tea leaves to chew.

Tai Kwan: You are being irrational. The sickness, your relationship to the vict … You are being irrational. There’s no room for that now. Trust me and rest.

Hugh Kinley: Padruig * haak * loves to go * koff * fishing. He hates the way his feet seem so big …

Tai Kwan: Do not do this to yourself.

Hugh Kinley: His bedroom as a child was … * koff kaff koff * decorated with paintings of sheep.

Tai Kwan: I know what you are trying to do and …

Hugh Kinley: Padruig Oswald Kinley can sail better tha’ most men twice his age. He hates fruit where it doesna belong … like on fish. And now … Padruig … needs me. I gave him life, Tai … and now he is most important in mine …

Tai Kwan: Involvement clouds judgement. Replaces logic with … weakness. Those of us that cannot burn arrows out of the air with fireballs need all the armor we can get.

Look at you! You know what you are asking me … You know that you are jeopardizing the case.

The fact that I am deliberating with you is a testament to our friendship.

Hugh Kinley: Being involved makes you strong.

Tai Kwan: You call this strong?

Hugh Kinley: I bloody well stopped coughin’!

Tai Kwan: Fair enough.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

He’s so much lighter than I thought he would be. He’s helping. I know … using what little power he has left to shift his mass … but he’s so light. Frail. A misstep will break him in two … break that heart of his in two.

10:15 pm. For no apparent reason … I suddenly miss Taichi. Damn you, Hugh.

10: 50 pm. This is it.

Hugh Kinley: Are ye sure?

Tai Kwan: You do not smell it?

Hugh Kinley: Smell wha’?

Tai Kwan: Lucky. You may still want to use this. Blocks most of the unpleasantness. One side effect, though … no more candy canes. Sense memory. Peppermint will bring you right back.

Hugh Kinley: To wha’?

Tai Kwan: The work. Always the work.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Primary feeding site located. Cursory visual sweep indicates approximately twenty-five corpses. Decomposition modalities difficult to apply due to the changeling’s unique –

Hugh Kinley: Padruig?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Unique method of –

Hugh Kinley: Is it?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Method of …

Why did you not stay behind. This … This is not for you. Not for you, Hugh

No one deserves this moment.

Tai Kwan: Blonde. Hai …

Hugh Kinley: Blonde hair, not …

Tai Kwan: Not a redhead. Not Padruig. Mikalia Shep …

Hugh Kinley: Nay … dinna. Dinna say her name. Just hair color. Just that she is not Padruig. She canna be real … yet.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

11:01 pm. Mikalia Shepher found. Deceased. Case closed.

Perhaps for the first time, Hugh understands. I still wish he had stayed behind.

Hugh Kinley: Tai. I hear breathing.

Tai Kwan: Where?

Hugh Kinley: Breathing.

Tai Kwan: I have explosives and digging tools in my horse’s pack. Fifty seconds and I can have them back here.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

Complainant ignores me and glows bright blue as he increases his mass and strength.

I hear things … pop … in him. For a moment I cannot move. Muscles in his back separate from bone.

He shatters at least three laws of physics along with his collarbone.

For a solid minute, Hugh ceases to be a creature of flesh and blood.

11:03 pm. I witness empirical proof of the power of love. Infected, I find myself bending a physical law or two with him.

Padruig Kinley: Wha’ kept ye, Da? I was just startin’ ta’ worry. An’ why are ye glowin’ tha’ green color?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

11: 04 pm. Hugh and I find Padruig alive. Case closed.

Tai Kwan: Domo arigatou.

Padruig Kinley: Da?

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

It is a very short moment.

Padruig Kinley: Da!

Hugh Kinley: Never … Never doubted him, Padruig. Knew he would find you … before…

The Highlander falls to the ground.

Padruig Kinley: No!

He lifts his father’s head into his lap as he crouches down.

Hugh Kinley: Ah, me beautiful boy. I have always loved ye more tha’ life itself.

Padruig Kinley: Da! No!

Hugh Kinley: Such a beautiful boy.

Tai’s War Journal Entry:

11:11 pm. Hugh. The complainant … ceases to exhibit signs of life …

It is an homicide after all.

.
_________________
"He's been fired from the Shrimp Boat?" -- Charlaine Harris "Living Dead In Dallas."