A Shadowy Cult

[Technocrat]

Hey everybody!

So I've been hearing rumors of some sort of cult operating in the Winnipeg area. Apparently these guys are into some pretty bad mojo. There's an Aztec connection. Something about them wanting to summon the end of the world or something on December 22 of this year.

Anyway, I'm going to be looking into this and if anyone can join in, I'd be happy to have you along. If not, well, I'll keep you all posted as things progress.

Normally I wouldn't get into an investigation like as I'm more of a geek than an investigator. But with a child on the way, my perspective has changed. I want my child to grow up in a world without fear.

Take care all!

[Cessiel]

I have seen visions of this.

I will help you, my young friend.

[Tms3]

I am a tad busy with trouble in Virgina atm. but if you still need help when I get that dealt with I will see what I can do. also I will keep my feelers out so to speak. on anther note I do not know if its related or not. but I have noted a higher level of abent ppe around Kentucky as with Virgina. do not now what if any thing it means but I find it troubling for some reason any on else notice this?

[Technocrat]

I understand if you can't make it out right away, Tms3. I'll still keep you and everyone else posted though!

As for the rest, I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. Like I said, I'm just a geek who believes. I'll ask around though and see if anyone knows anything.

[Grace]

I have a lot of personal stuff to take care of in New York but after I'll come help you, Techno. I haven't forgotten that I owe you one.

[Hannah]

Techno, you said Aztec?

I think Mel told me something about finding some Aztec connections to the scene of the ritual murder in DC.

We are totally tied up around here at the moment otherwise we'd probably be following those things up.

Hannah

[Technocrat]

Thanks for the offer, Nemesis but like you said, you have business to take care of so while you're doing that, Cessiel and I will take care of this investigation, okay? I'll just take a rain check on that IOU for now.

Thanks Cessiel for coming up here and joining me in this.

I can't talk about what he can do exactly because he's one of those types whose a stickler for security. Not that I blame him.

Sorry you couldn't join us this time, Tms3. Maybe next time or maybe I'll be able to help you out.

Hannah,

Yeah, there does seem to be some sort of connection to the Aztec calender. We're just starting to look into this and I'll share whatever I find.

Take care everyone!

[Gotham Witch]

I wish i had seen this sooner.

Cessiel, I don't suppose it's possible you can shed any light on any findings you or Technocrat discovered? As Hannah noted, you weren't the only ones dealing with Aztec related rituals.

[Hannah]

I would have pointed it out to you earlier Mel but you have enough to deal with right now.

Hannah

[Cessiel]

Gotham Witch,

I will in the next day or two share all that I know. At the moment I am afraid that I am overcome with grief and emotion at the loss of a brave and heroic ally. I truly cannot sing the praises of young Technocrat enough.

In addition, I have been consoling his his unfortunate widow as best as I am able. While her late husband had the wisdom and foresight to have life insurance, I fear that the future will be difficult for her and their unborn child regardless. If anyone is able to help out, I am taking a collection to aid the family.

I will provide this much in brief.

There was indeed a cult active in the area although only the leader possessed any mystic knowledge or ability. The rest were little more than eldritch batteries to fuel her madness.

I suspect that the Aztec symbology is something of a red herring. It is used as an end of days reference to draw the foolish into this cult.

The purpose of this cult was to summon some sort of possessing entity they called a Shadow Avatar. It is odd in that it must be summoned into a host and if that host dies, it is banished.

Originally the cult seemed poised to perform their ritual come the equinox. Our investigation into their activities seem to have hastened their preparations. Thus while Technocrat and I were pursuing different leads when he was captured by them and used as their unwilling victim, the host for their avatar.

From the impressions I got from the site afterwards, I am convinced that he was able to hold onto his sense of self long enough to take the horror out of this world with him.

Fortunately I have persuaded the police that there is not enough evidence to rule this a suicide so it has been judged an accident instead. This was done as a move of consideration and compassion to the widow, for which I am quite grateful.

Hannah,

Technocrat knew and understood that the rest of you were all quite busy and unable to assist with this investigation. He was, as always, happy to help in what ways he could and always seemed very optimistic about our success in this manner.

Despite our immediate difficulties, I encouraged and supported his efforts to help find your friend. Well he was not successful in that endeavor, it seems to have worked out for the best, which is one small blessing.

Ronin,

I know you will be reading this so I will address the issue here. When you arrive, I will do all in my power to ensure you are able to find the cultists and deal with them in whatever way your honor demands.

[GhostSpider]

As one who was also used to bring a great evil into this world, I can sympathize with what technocrat must have gone through.

If the family needs money, i would be more than happy to make a donation.

[Celeste Darken]

Biggie, too, was killed when he began investigating a cult. Perhaps they are related.

Perhaps they are not.

Whatever the case, it is good that you have not snapped at Cessiel; a creature with arguably shady ties.

[GhostSpider]

Dead people shouldn't post here.

[Cessiel]

Such insinuations you cast, Miss Darken.

In any case I must be on and away from the eratic light of this house.

I leave you with this.

"There must be some kind of way out of here,"
Said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief.
Businessman they drink my wine,
Plowman dig my earth
None will level on the line, nobody offered his word, hey"

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too

Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl
Buisness man there, drink my wine,
Come and take my herb.

[Ron Caliburn]

No more distractions, we have to get a move on this, even if Darcy and I have to sit on the shelf.

[Hannah]

Dad,

We'll make sure your both better and can help us because without the two of you we might not be able to do anything.

Besides, we need to patch up Matt and Mel a bit too.

Hannah

[Tms3]

let me know if there is any thing I can do to help. I will do what I can.

And Cee I thought you where human again...


Is getting confused

[Grace]

I have no plans to sit on the shelf for this one.

[GhostSpider]

Sounds uncomfortable anyways.

[Grace]

Sounds uncomfortable anyways.

Knowing me? Yes.

[RAVEN]

Friends, I am not much good in a fight, but I can put the resources of the After Midnight Agency at your disposal. If you need more investigators to chase down leads which are still warm, let me know. If you would like some extra muscle, let me send you a little. If Mrs. Technocrat could use a job, I am offering.

Also, I might have a little something-something of genuine Mexica origins in my personal collection.

[Ron Caliburn]

Nemesis and I are best for dealing things once they are found, so if you can help point us in a direction Raven, she and I will do the rest.

[Celeste Darken]

Perhaps I am dead; perhaps I am not.
Perhaps I reverted; perhaps I am fiend.

But for now, you don’t know.
Wonder, at your convenience.
Ignore, at your peril.

I am satisfied.

[Sparks]

Dead or not, you're one hell of a poet, lady.

[Tms3]

ummm that's ominous

[Shadowstalker]

Hey there folks, I may not have knowen Technocrat that well, but I am more than willing to offer my aid in the lnvestigation into his death. Once we find the guilty parties, I will also be more than willing to help bring some justice.

[Ron Caliburn]

Nemesis and I followed up on some leads that Diana and Melissa provided into the DC ritual before all this Nightmare business went down. Had a very interesting night last night. I'm not sure if it was productive or a wash yet, things are a little too early to tell.

Here's how it went down . . .

I’ve always liked doing field work with Nemesis. Despite our initial differences in philosophy our skill sets are quite complimentary. She is an artist when it comes to long ranged rifle fire while I am well-suited to the brutality of close range combat. Even more importantly, both of us were raised into very similar schools of warfare, similar enough that we can anticipate each other’s movement and positioning with only the occasional uttered syllable or brief hand sign.

We moved through the building quickly, using speed and surprise to get us through the defensive cordon before there was a chance to be detected. Suppressed pistols rapidly dispatched any guards unlucky enough to be in our path.

Soon we were on the catwalks above the factory floor. It was obvious that this is where the heart of the action to follow would be. Already the participants had begun to gather for ceremony, unaware of what lurked above them.

A quick click on the radio brought my eyes to Nemesis, her fiery hair hidden under a ski-mask, her green eyes masked by protective goggles. Or eyes met for just a moment before she flicked her gaze over my shoulder. Tracking to where she was looking I saw a control cabin for an overhead hoist system, the perfect nest for Nemesis to set up her suppressed APR308S rifle.

Our eyes met again and I gave her a nod before looking to my spot near one of the ladders down to floor level so that I could run our planned snatch on the Master of Ceremonies, or rescue a sacrifice if there turned out to be one.

When our gaze met again she gave me a nod followed by a wink. I knew she didn’t need to see through my mask to pick up the smile that brought to my face.

I covered her move towards the control cabin, thankful that the ceremony about to start below was lit with candles instead of using the factory lights. Had the illumination been better, an errant glance upwards would have revealed Nemesis and I clearly. As it was, we were just two more shadows in the inky blackness above the crowd.

Nemesis slowly slid into the control cabin. I waited for her signal that she was in position to cover my move. Instead I heard her suppressed pistol clack twice.

“Status.” I barely breathed the word out, the throat microphones didn’t actually need us to speak aloud to pick up what we said.

The crowd below began to chant, the Master of Ceremonies obviously would be appearing soon. The noise from the chanting made it hard to clearly hear Nemesis’ reply.

“Say again.”

“Abort.”

I almost broke radio procedures to find out why she was scrubbing the mission this close to the objective. Instead I signaled the affirmative and started looking to our egress route.

“Hold position.”

What the heck? Was she just trying to mess with me? If we weren’t going to do this, we needed to get out of here now.

“Raise your right hand.”

“Say again?” This made no sense.

“Ron . . . please, I need you to raise your right hand.” The strain in her voice was palpable.

She was in trouble and needed me to follow her instructions, as odd as they may seem.

Slowly I raised my hand.

Her tone relaxed. “Thank you, come to my position quietly, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Quietly I worked my way towards her, trying not to pay attention to the missed opportunity occurring just 30 feet below.

I arrived ready for just about anything, but what I found still caught me off guard. Nemesis had removed her mask and was kneeling next to the crumpled form of a man in nondescript clothing. She was facing a girl of about fifteen years old. The girl was calmly unloading and taking apart an AWC rifle and placing it in a case, seemingly oblivious to the streaks of blood splashed across her face.

“What the . . .”

“Ron, this is Cynthia. We are leaving and taking her with us. Isn’t that right Cynthia?”

“ Yes Momma.”

[Grace]

I suppose I should give my version of events up to this point.

Like Ron said, we work together well. We've learned to read each others body language, responding to the needs of the other as required. There's no denying the bond that arises from going into combat along side someone you trust.

At first, everything seemed to be going smoothly. We'd both found positions that would suit our two styles. The problem arose when I got to my position. It was ideal alright. Another sniper and spotter had already moved into it and appeared to be waiting for the festivities to begin.

It would have seemed like we were on the same side except for two things. The first was that the spotter half of the pair had spotted me and immediately began to draw his weapon to fire at me. I was faster.

The other problem that suggested that we were not on the same side was the sniper herself. She had begun turning around as soon as I had arrived but lying behind a rifle does not lend itself to turning around in a hurry. Still, she was fast. By the time I had dispatched her spotter she had drawn her sidearm and begun to bring it to bear on me.

Her adolescent face was splattered with the blood of her partner. Her eyes rested on him as the motion of her arm arrested before finishing its arc to me. She seemed to be watching something but betrayed no emotion.

"Drop it, girly." I commanded as quietly as I could while covering her with my sidearm.

She blinked and turned her head to me. She made no move to finish aiming at me but neither did she disarm herself. "You have dispatched my handler. Are you with the cultists?"

"No." I said as I narrowed my eyes, wondering where this would be go.

She seemed to consider this for a second as she carefully assessed me. "Are you here to kill the cult leader?"

"Yes." I said, wondering if she was considering a team up of some sort.

"Are you my new handler?" She asked in the same tone an orphan might ask if I was their new mother.

"...yes." I said, not knowing what else to say or do.

"Please provide facial recognition." Her response seemed automatic, like it was programmed.

Hesitantly, I removed my mask and goggles.

"Transferral of command accepted." She said mechanically, "orders?"

"We're aborting." Then I signalled Ron the same.

Apparently he hadn't heard me and asked for confirmation, which I provided.

Meanwhile, Cynthia was surveying the scene with a critical eye through the spotter's scope. "Our most expedient route is compromised, preparing to neutralize threat." She swung the rifle in Ron's direction.

"No! Wait!" I said with a note of urgency. "We have an ally down there."

I figured Ron had probably started to move for our exit. "Hold position." I sent to him.

"Please designate allied combatant." Cynthia said, not taking her eye from her scope or finger from the trigger.

"Raise your right hand." I told Ron.

"What?" Came his disbelieving reply.

"Ron... please, I need you to raise your right hand." I had my pistol inches from the back of the kids head, just in case she paused in her breathing, started squeezing the trigger or anything else that might suggest she was about to shoot.

Thankfully, he complied instead of just about anything else he could have done. "Thank you, come to my position quietly, there's someone I want you to meet."

As he began to comply I regarded the dark haired girl in front of me. "What's your name?"

She looked at me as though she thought I was testing her, but answered anyway, "I am Cynthia. What is your designation?"

Holy hell but this girl had undergone some serious indoctrination. I wasn't sure exactly how to respond so I went with what my gut was telling me. "Momma."

"And our allied designation?" She prompted.

With, what I will admit was a mischievous smirk, I said, "Papa."

A moment later, Ron was there. I could only imagine the look on his face. "What the..."

And I was about to add to his state of shock. "Ron, this is Cynthia. We are leaving and we're taking her with us. Isn't that right, Cynthia?"

"Yes Momma." She agreed as she finished packing away her rifle.

Of course, it wasn't going to be as easy as all that. That was the moment that the master of ceremonies finally decided to make his appearance. Despite being out of view, his head snapped to our location. "She's here!" He shouted, causing cultists to start drawing weapons and diving for cover in a panic.

At the same time that was happening, Cynthia was speaking. "Hostile arcane target detected. Orders?"

[Ron Caliburn]

“We’ll talk later.” I told Nemesis. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded and turned to the girl. “Time to leave, Papa has drag.”

“Papa, wha –“ Nemesis strode past me, the girl in tow. Shaking my head I followed up, switching over from my Piece to my brand-new KAC PDW.

It didn’t take long for Nemisis to start things up. She’s always been a little faster on the trigger than me and a burst from the select-fire Glock she was carrying certainly caused the first wave to reconsider their choices. Those that didn’t get the point had an encounter with a 65 grain semi-jacketed hollow-point traveling at 2424 feet per second.

I hate high body count operations, but we already knew these guys had deadly intentions and there were too many of them for us to have pulled any punches on our way out.

That’s when I caught sight of the Master of Ceremonies. We’d been hoping to get some information from him, but with the op a failure I figured I might as well go for the target of the opportunity. I lined up the AimPoint RedDot sight square on his center mass and gently squeezed the trigger.

A small surge of light marked where my bullet should have struck him.

“ Magical threat Momma, I am engaging.” The little girl’s voice was eerily calm as she brought up her hand and a bolt of inky blackness crossed the divide between her and the Master of Ceremonies. The Master recoiled as whatever had blocked my bullet failed. He quickly ducked out of sight behind another wave of his followers.

Nemesis locked eyes for a moment, without a word we reorganized all our mission objectives and parameters. We had to get this girl out of here now and sort out exactly what was the deal with her. She had other priorities though.

“ Threat still in evidence, moving to secondary attack mode.” As she grabbed Nemesis’ suppressed pistol from its holster. “ Don’t worry Momma, I’ll protect you.”

[Grace]

Having had my back to Cynthia at the time, I didn't realize it was her drawing my suppressed side arm. I'd actually thought it might be Ron, but it didn't make any sense to me that he'd want to.

I was flabbergasted that this little girl thought she was going to be protecting me. I was outright pissed that she'd grabbed one of my firearms without permission. But she wasn't looking at me, she was preparing to engage hostiles. Absently I noted that she had excellent posture and a very professional shooting stance.

Ron had noted her relieving me of my sidearm as well as her stance and he was having none of it. He was moving to restrain and disarm her before she did something else unpredictable.

Unfortunately it seemed that she had reflexes every bit as honed as ours. Not to mention the strength to back them up with, which seemed to catch Ron a bit off guard when she clubbed him in the nose with the butt of my pistol. There was a trickle of blood and it seemed that Cynthia only then noticed that Ron was there at all.

With a small and almost dainty finger she reached up and brushed the blood off his lips and chin. “Thanks Papa,” she said as sweetly as if he had given her candy and then her head snapped to the charging enemy cultists. She gestured with her blood soaked hand while chanting in a language that sounded... menacing.

The shadows around our pursuers began to appear as though they were burning fires. Indeed, as the enemy passed through them, they reacted as though burned, as though they were catching on fire, in fact. The blood on her hand disappeared as the spell was cast. That's when I noticed that the blood on her face was also gone, and had been since she had first attacked the master of ceremonies. It was immediately disturbing on many levels.

Ron, despite his initial surprise wasn't done overcoming the random element that Cynthia posed so I provided suppressing fire while he did his thing. His taser caught Cynthia completely by surprise and she crumpled with a shocked look on her face.

I caught her as Ron turned and provided the covering fire for us to begin our withdraw. She was surprisingly heavy for her size and age and I knew why immediately. Her little frame was as packed with lean ropey muscles as you could imagine.

By the time we were out of the building, she was starting to recover. Her eyes blinked and she seemed to recognize me. “Momma? I think Papa has been compromised.”

“No dear, he hasn't.” I assured her as I made a dash for Ron's waiting car. The steady stream of bullets behind me let me know that he was keeping their heads down. I slid over the trunk of the car to the passenger side, “get in the back.” I instructed Cynthia. Then I started to fire, giving Ron a chance to run. I kept firing until he was in the drivers seat and had pushed open my door for me. Such a gentleman.

Having been relieved of my firearm by Ron, Cynthia had pulled her own subcompact and was shooting out the window, covering our exit out of there. I realized then why she had went for my weapon instead of her own. Her's was a subcompact with a relatively limited payload and only had semi-automatic fire. In a tactical way, it had all made sense, despite how it freaked us out at the time.

Of course Ron was still clearly freaked out by the armed little girl directly behind his seat.

“Cynthia, I need you to clear that weapon and disarm now.” I said, turning to look at her, taking the opportunity to make sure she wasn't wounded.

Without hesitation or question, she unloaded the pistol and cleared it safely. She demonstrated the automatic drills that an experienced shooter would have. Then she held the firearm out for me to take. That freed her up to glare at Ron's back. “Are you sure that Papa is not compromised?”

“Yes.” I decided to explain it to her in a way I figured she'd understand for now. “Papa and I are used to working together but not with you. Your actions were unpredictable and were not meshing well with our way of operating. So you had to be neutralized for the safety of the team and mission.”

She thought about that for a moment and nodded. “That was smart of you Papa. I'm sorry I made you bleed, but it did help me slow down the enemy.”

I looked at Ron. There was no blood on his face anymore. He was looking in the mirror and coming to the same realization. Somehow, blood fuelled her magic. This was starting to be some real hard core, freaky crap. There was some doubt in my mind that I had made the right choice.

Looking back at her, I saw her large soulful eyes on me. “Are we going back to the Foundation now, Momma?”

I knew right then that right or wrong, I was going to do everything I possibly could to help this little girl. “Not tonight, Cynthia.”

But some night we will.