Who's That Coming, From Somewhere Up in the Sky? (IC)

[Shofet]

Since the Grooveshark Widget does not work for me

Friday, February 24, 2012: 6:33 PM. Outside Southern Portion of Freedom City.

The sun had just set, and the rain was pounding down hard, the world illuminated for brief seconds by brilliant arcs of lightning exploding from the clouds, bringing with them the loud roar of thunder.

It was the perfect Friday night to make an entrance. At least, it was in the Penitent's opinion.

He sped through the air, just breaking 250 miles per hour. The rain splattered across his face and soaked him thoroughly, and at this speed, even stung a little. His thick mop of black hair, now thoroughly drenched, occasionally obscured his vision, though the approaching city lights shone through. He was almost there: Freedom City, the place where heroes lived. The weather almost made the city look threatening, turning skyscrapers into long, black spires reaching deep into the stormy night sky, but anticipation ate away at any anxiety the sight might cause. He was going to be in Freedom City.

He took a brief look at himself, and wondered how the others might receive him in what he was wearing: a black leather jacket over a wet white t-shirt and black vest, and black leather chaps over worn blue jeans, complimented with heavy combat boots. Coupled with his demonic appearance, he looked like a biker from Hell. But he wasn't deterred. These guys saw strange things all the time, right?

Besides, he wasn't here to make a good impression. He was here to help people. The people sometimes even other heroes forgot. With a thousand souls on his back, it would not be easy. But to Hell with easy. He was the Penitent. He didn't do things because they were easy.

He was going to help this city.

[Ari]

Crouched on the top of the Centery Bridge, watching the constant flow of metal traffic below him, the monstrous form of the triton Wave-Eye, once Nochehuatl, sat eating. He had only recently crept up from the sea to join humanity in at least partial fellowship, and already he felt a deep clenching in his stomach whenever he considered the day's trek across the surface. The dry, dusty world he saw above had done little to endear itself to him, and it was only in storms like this that he felt much better about his choice.

Munching a halibut he had snagged from where it had been wandering near the Great Bay, his gaze gradually lifted from the familiar waves of his natural habitat to the skies above. Seeing nothing to the north, a sky-borne tussle to the west and a thick fog to the east, he looked tot he south. His eyes, after a few moments of casual insensitivity to the blinking lights of an airplane, suddenly latched onto a flying being hurtling roughly in his direction.

Pondering what this might mean, he decided it wouldn't hurt to try and get their attention. In a bizarre process, he turned his legs to a tail and back again three times, each change accompanied by a flare of light. With any luck he told himself this will at least lead them to someone a little tougher-skinned than most his teeth calmly crunched their way through the fish's body, and he readied himself in case this new arrival proved less than friendly.

[Shofet]

The Penitent saw the sudden blinking lights, which flashed three times in rapid succession. He would have passed it off, but from focusing, he saw that it was coming from something organically shaped. Given that, he figured it was one of the heroes. It never even occurred him that there were people who had powers who weren't necessarily "heroes" as he descended upon the source of the light.

He slowed at first, letting the source of the light become less and less an amorphous blob and more shaped in his view, becoming... a fishman. A frankly predatory fishman, but he tried not to judge based on appearances given his own situation.

Grinning, he parted the hair from his eyes as his boots clapped down on the solid ground. "You rang?"

[Ari]

"I signaled, yes" came the hissed reply from the triton. He was a little perplexed at the look of the being in front of him. He was no stranger to creatures with horns, gray skin and red eyes, but this one looked almost human for all that. The spines protruding from its hide were a downright welcome sight to him, as he unconsciously was ashamed of his spined hands. rending a generous portion from the halibut he removed the skin and bones and organs from it with minute care, washed it with water from the conch shell hung at his side, and offered it to the new arrival.

"I am Wave-Eye, and I welcome you to Freedom City, unless you wish to cause the mortals here harm that is" he said in his hissing, gurgling voice between sharp teeth "Then I would have to fight you. I dare say I would have the worst of it though" he added with a sharp glance at the man's(Looks like a male, might as well think of them as such just in case) red eyes. Tossing the white skeleton he had so far uncovered into the water below he said casually "So, what brings you here? I do not think you are human and you carry no baggage, so I doubt you have come to trade with their merchants"

[Shofet]

The Penitent took the fish gratefully -- while not used to raw fish, he was always hungry and willing to try something new if it meant calming the growl in his stomach.

"Thanks for the fish," He said before biting into it and swallowing "but no, not here to hurt anyone. Here to help, in fact."

He wolfed down the rest of the fish, not really slow enough to mind the taste, even if he would have had a problem with it. He nodded again to Wave-Eye in thanks, and wiped his mouth clean.

"But I actually am a human. Well, I think I still am, at the very least. Powers being what they are, you never know," Looking back at the city, he gave a bit of an appreciative sigh "Well, it's hard to believe I'm here, but I'm here to help people get on the right path. That's generally my thing, leading people onto the path to light and all that."

He extended his hand "But I suppose I better give you my name," he said warmly. "You can call me the Penitent, Wave-Eye. Very good to meet you."

[Ari]

"I have never seen a human that looked like you" Wave-Eye commented, looking at Penitent with renewed interest, shaking his hand heartily, the spines making the grip a touch more memorable than a normal handshake "and it is a pleasure to meet a new protector, Penitent. The wretches that besiege the fragile peace of this city are seemingly without number" his fangs scraped the last of the fish meat from the skeleton, and with a wistful glance his tossed the remains to the water below.

Turning back to the Penitent he asked the obvious question "Tell me, why do you call yourself 'the Penitent?' And what right path do you speak of?" his enormous eyes peered intently at the demonic figure before him "And is it open to all?"

[Shofet]

"Why do I call myself the Penitent?" That gave him pause as he scratched his chin. "Well, I guess because everyone before me who held this job was called the Penitent."

He looked back up at the sky as lightning cracked again and the rain doubled in strength as it poured on the ground.

"But, as I remember it..." His old Virginia accent making the words come out as "As ah rembah it" as he spoke "I'm called the Penitent because I work to help the thousand souls bound to me repent. You know, stop doing what made them evil and turn to good. In return, they gimme powers, or that's how I think it works. Incidentally, that's why I look like this."

He nodded at his answer, hoping it was satisfactory.

"As for, well, the path I was talking about... Well, I suppose what I meant was that any man, or woman for that matter, well, no matter what harm they've done, they've always the chance to turn around and do good and they should be given that chance. I mean, everyone has the right to be forgiven if they really mean it. But as for whether it's open to all... I think anyone has the ability to follow it, but not everyone will, if you know what I mean. But yeah, anyone can follow the path to redeeming themselves, I believe."

He laughed at himself. "Did I explain myself clear enough?"

[Ari]

Wave-Eye digested this information with great calmness, though inside he was filled with sudden curiosity "Perfectly clear to me" he answered, mulling over how much the world of souls must have changed for such an agent to even exist. "My own story is much less likely to inspire, I fear. I used to be a mercenary of the sea gods for millenniums, for eons I was one of the more..violently-inclined servants of the armies that once fought in the deeps, before I was exiled for refusing to harm humans on the order of the dragon Mizuchi. I have come now to be a guard against the enemies humans have in the sea, to be their eye in the waves, so to speak, thus my chosen title" he had become much less pleasant to hear as the short speech went on, and at its conclusion was nearly growling. Checking himself, he softened his voice and added "But that is now in the past, quite..irrelevant now" he glanced over at the bright lights of the city close by, his eyes still smarting even though they were at least a mile distant "I am guessing you know already how much good can be done in this place, if you came here to redeem souls. But tell me: how does their granting you power and aiding you in battle help make up for the evil they've done?"

[Shofet]

The Penitent shrugged his shoulders gently.

"Really, it's just a chance for them to do good by proxy. I'm not really the man I was before..." He gestured to his strange features "This happened."

He tapped his chin. "It's hard to explain, but essentially, their personalities kind of blended with mine. So when I do good... We all do good. Besides, the genuine remorse goes a long way in making up for what they've done."

He grinned as the lightning flashed again.

"I know, it's an odd way to go about it, but at the very least it gives me the chance to help the living as well as the dead."

[Ari]

The triton nodded quietly, digging a small furrow in the bridge support with a hard and sharp toenail. He could understand the concept of what the Penitent served as, but the finer points still struck him as totally removed from the reality he knew. An odd world this, if Penitent truly is really what and who he says he is he commented internally, saying out loud "It is a great thing when the dead help the living, even if simply by example or record, to provide concrete power in this world is quite incredible to me" he looked at the Penitent's clothes "I have no wish to weary you with talk, O' Penitent," despite the archaic phrasing, he spoke quite sincerely "but I dare say you know much more about this modern world than I, so I ask: how should I gain the trust of the humans here? How do you?"

[Shofet]

The Penitent looked at the fish-man for a moment, and shrugged idly.

"That, I can't say. I suppose the first thing is that you just need to earn it. You're always gonna get a few who won't accept you if you look a little different, but at the same time... people remember what you do. You might not get praise for it, you might not become a public idol, but people notice. If anything, you might just get them to cooperate."

He looked out at the city.

"It depends on what you're looking for. Even if everyone hated me, I think I'd try to help them."

[Ari]

"It depends on what you're looking for. Even if everyone hated me, I think I'd try to help them."

Wave-Eye blinked in surprise at that. It was quite possibly the total opposite of everything he had learned in the sea.

"I will remember that. I dare say it will not be easy to keep it in mind when dealing with the people I'll have to meet now" he looked down at the glistening shells passing by under them "Becoming a..'public idol; is pretty far from likely, I think. Not many moderns would give much thought to someone that looked like me" he gave a rather sour smile to the Penitent "I would bet a great deal that even aiding them will only go so far, but I will do what I can. Many freight ships travel from here, and so many are threatened by sea beasts it defies all logic" he shook his head, its strange interconnected hair waving like seaweed "And even the Lady Siren's Atlantean allies can only do so much. It's heavy work at the best of times"

[Shofet]

The Penitent grinned at Wave-Eye, as he had been doing the whole conversation.

"Hey, hey, I think you'll do fine. Just remember, if you start thinking that maybe helping them is not worth it, just remember that doing good is kinda like dominoes. Doing good makes other people wanna do good. Gives 'em the courage to do good."

He extended his hand again to Wave-Eye. "Now, I better get into the city. If you want to come with me, that's good with me, but if you don't..." He looked over Wave-Eye "Well, I guess you wouldn't have a cell-phone on you, but if you ever need help with the big drink then just give me a holler and I'll help you right away."

The lightning arced once more through the sky. "But in any case, thanks for the welcome. It's really good to meet you, Wave-Eye."

[Ari]

The monster nodded thoughtfully at the Penitent's words. At the offer to carry him into the city he shook his head once, saying with a slight gurgle "There's some kind of piracy gang that's started operating around here, need to get the drop on them as early as I can. Thank you for the offer," he added solemnly "If at a later time I can help you, I will" he stretched his limbs, looking down at the surging water passing through the bridge's supports "Ah! The tide is lowering. They will be creeping out soon" he extended his right hand towards the Penitent "May we meet again, if I might suggest a good meeting spot, it would be at an old willow tree near the bridge called Mona-Glen" shaking the soul-bearer's hand firmly he turned and dove off the bridge into the river, his legs joining into a dragon's tail just before he slammed face-first into the water with a flash of light. Sliding effortlessly through the murky water, he followed the distant throb of an outboard motor, grinning to himself at the prospect of such a simple task as he had before him. I'll try not to terrify them too much he told himself.