14764/Drawn to it.

Drawn to it.
Date of Scene:	25 April 2023
Location:	A tunnel lit by string lights beneath an industrial park.
Synopsis:	A war against the cartel begins. Heaven help them both.
Cast of Characters:	Tyrone Johnson, Tandy Bowen

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Tyrone Johnson has posed:
It had been sometime since they had seen each other, but even when Cloak did finally coelsce before herl he hadn't said anything. He'd just surrounded her, the familiar embrace of his emptiness giving way to the single length of lights down a long corridor of freshly excavated earth.

They where in a tunnel now, no words, no prelude. Nothing. He loomed there partially, present and not present, but could still be felt all around her. The line of lights stretched off in the distance in both directions, but yielded little save a cold calculation that aproximated straight and level.

"I found them." he said finally. "I found a part of them." he said, sounding tired, but tired in the sense of years.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Immediately coming down to find Cloak, Tandy isn't surprised she finds him there in the dark, guiding her as if all present like the old days. She slowly walks through the dark underneath the bridge, into a small tunnel beneath the industrial park. Even her blonde hair fades from view, until suddenly a spark of light flickers from somewhere on her shoulder, then another at her face. The sparks grow brighter. She raises her hand as if she could touch him and her white nails glow as if like a beacon, "Are you alright?" she asks him, "You didn't have to go by yourself," she reminds him.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Even with the first spark she can feel him strengthening. He's been so diminished it was hard to sense him present, feel him there. He fed now, growing stronger from each glint of her power, and as she reached there was almost enough to feel him on the pads of her fingers. A hint that he was there, like a fresh foot print in the dirt. "Getting lost more." he admitted, swirling jaggedly for a moment. There was a sound like an exhale, but it wasnt coming from one direction, rather all around her. "I had a dream."

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Tandy Bowen glances behind her as if something might be there and she lowers her hand, though she starts to glow strangely dim like a firefly. "A dream? What kind of dream?" she wonders, and she steps back to glance further down the tunnel, but the dark hopefully draws back to her to comfort her, eleviating her worry. "I think I know what you're going to say. Something's wrong, right?" she asks him, "I think someone's been following me. Or at least trying to," she adds. Maybe she should have told him about it before. Darn.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Who." swirled the thing that loved her, needed her, and for some reason was long absent from her.

"You're safe, with me." said the voice. He sounded strong and resolute. He could be so much more for her than he could be, or would be for himself. He coveted her now, difficult without a fully corporeal body, but there was a perfectly Dagger shaped pocket within him now.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Tandy Bowen stands in the dark and starts to hear the rain start, coming down slowly at first on the metal bridge above them in the park. "Who? I'm not sure," she tells him, "I thought it was gangers at first but now I'm not sure. Gangers prolly would have harrassed me," she adds. Her fingers start to glow again and she takes her hands out of her jeans' pockets. "Have you noticed anything strange? What's been goin on?" she asks.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"They once moved product through these tunnels." because gangers where also on his mind of late. Another exhale that made his voice sound like it came from all around, rather than focused through the medium of a person. "They never turned off the lights. Just left them...burning."

She could feel him re-orienting to capture the light from her fingers, like a plant growing toward the sun but subtle sudden and swift. "Stopped(using them) for years." he said, "But now they will begin again. I watched them re-animate the corpse of their work. Rebuilt their teams. Found cooks. Built labs. Made product." he said ominously, "Now they move it. Under ground where no one sees. Into the arteries of the world."

Tandy Bowen has posed:
"A lot of things rise up unexpectedly when you don't expect it," Tandy says and her fingers stop glowing, but she keeps her hands out a moment more then puts them on her hips as she considers, "We should do something if they're starting again. Stupid druggies. I hate them," she says. She's quiet for a moment and dark, the light from her dimming to nothing until she's almost part of the dark herself, "We have to stop them, whoever it is," she says, the light finally buzzing to life in her hair and along her shoulders, as if compelled by what she says.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak was silent a long moment and then responded in agreement. "Where do we start?" and then "Are we killers?" he wondered. The sound of distant machinery traveled toward them from miles away down the tunnel. Then it stopped, but it was a reminder. "How far is too far, for us?" as if there was no question in his mind that they, Tyrone and Tandy, would be on the same page about this.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Tandy was silent too as she thought about Cloak's questions, "We are the light to cleanse the trouble from around here," she states with a sense of determination. She crosses her arms to signal this. "Don't worry. We'll destroy their labs. Their stuff. Then there won't be anything left. We'll drive them off," she explains then frowns as if thinking about how it's different this time, "But they're getting smarter. They're hiding."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Once we were frightened animals, when they came we went to ground in the briar patch." he said, evoking images of rabbits, feelings of fear. "This time will be different. We have seen enough to know how to wage war. Now we will hunt and they will go to ground. Now they are engine of world, they have become normal, and ordinary, and expected and we are the grotesque."

"But promise me one thing. Promise me you will never hate me for waging war. I couldn't live with it."

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Tandy Bowen hmms and looks concerned, "Hate you? I couldn't," she starts saying quickly, "But you have to be careful! We don't want to bring it all down on us. We have so ...little...we can't lose anything more," she says and looks on back toward the light at the end of the tunnel, the moon crisply trying to break through the rain. The rain doesn't let up above and seems to be getting heavier. "We will go on together," she assures him, "Don't worry."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Are you ready to face what comes?" and ominously the engine in the distance started again, roaring to life as if someone had left their foot on the pedal, wide open throttle. "Are you ready to show them light?" he asked again. He was summing himself up now, she could almost feel the heat of Tyrone's body, was that a hand on her shoulder? Was he here, with her, was he touching her? Where they connected now? Could they have that promised moment; of sweetness, tenderness, humanity?

Cloak shot out in all directions, a collection of hungry shadows and malefic shearing of real space, like insects scrambling over each other, unbidden by concern for their own in relentless pursuit. Then it swallowed them whole, and in the darkness that was transport, and safety, and sometimes the darkest of his dreams used like a brain surgeons scalpel he said in such a way that the whole of it was communicated in a single moment:

"I dreamed that we fled together, faster than light, away from the center of all things, to places where light had not yet been. In that moment of ultimate darkness and cold, we turns around to face the way we came and floated in place for a billion years and watched the universe give birth to itself."

And then they where there, in front of the truck. A technician bent over the engine bay, and one cartel man impatiently behind the wheel, jamming his foot on the gas while others loaded it from the rear. He would keep her in the darkness until she emerged of her own will, the will he borrowed just to exist.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
"You ...have such a way of putting things, Ty," Tandy says as her eyes begin to water at the thought of Tyrone's sadness, his conflict, and his determination, like her. She reaches up to touch his hand on her shoulder but there is nothing, only dark, a fleeting moment lost in the wind and the noise of the nearby truck.

The tunnel shudders a little as the truck invades with its loud engine noise. It's maybe a hiding place, or a meeting spot for someone who doesn't want to be seen. Or maybe they can't get the truck started and are stuck in the mud. But it's still a bit too much to promise to hide here when the all-seeing light is around, raising her arms and showing anyone else nearby her light. She's suddenly not Tandy anymore, but a white being (but blonde), a DAGGER in the once-dark tunnel. "Someone's there!" she points out, "Cloak!" she calls.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Cloak singularities out of existence, shrinking suddenly and violently to a single point of absolute darkness before re-appearing just above a sub-machine gunner rushing to get an angle around the truck. The hole above Eduardo's head draws his vision, then the barrel of his gun which he fires. The sounds of the bullets ripping through the air bounce around im the confined space, but the bullets fail to richochet off the tunnel walls as they leave the confines of the primary dimension and pass to a new place, not of their origin.

The hole collapses down on Eduardo, disseappearing him from view as if he were being erased by a pencil. His scream is that of surprise and confusion, and is truncated by his rapid lack of agency.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
The light somehow frowns as Cloak dispatches off the ganger but she's too distracted by the roaring truck to notice---beams of light show the truck and illuminate it until DAGGERS erupt from her hands. She throws them at the truck and they impact it like shrapnel until it's nothing more than a heap. Dagger runs forward just as the driver bails out and makes a break for the end of the tunnel to get away. The light energy, her aura, the lightwill tracks the man easily, as if only testing his will to get away. He stumbles, the daggers in his feet. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" she asks him, "Cloak! Out here!" she calls to him.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
It will take them hours if not days to clear the destroyed truck from the tunnel. The Narco's begin to flee down the hall, there is no honor among the hired men. No concern for the well being of their teammates. Each man for his own skin, and each fleeing to save it. As Cloak phases in and out of reality, blocking for Dagger and consuming at her council, the hired man scoffs at Dagger in response. "You don't know what your doing, Capa. This world is not for you, they will kill you and make an example to the others. You pretty girl, stop now, stay pretty." and renewed his attempt to flee, best he was able.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Standing there, Dagger doesn't say anything back to the ganger spitting insults at her. She just lets him run off. Once gone, Tandy stands in the rain, the Dagger part of her gone, the light having faded from her person. "They might be back for the truck but there won't be much to find," she explains, "They'll have to drag it out or else their tracks will be all over this tunnel," she adds knowingly. She turns back to look for Cloak, "I'm going back to the shelter. Don't stay away."