ASH: Shadow Girls #9 - Stealing Shadows

[Drew Nilium]

On 11/22/22 1:40 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
>       [The cover shows Octa-Green struggling as something off-
>        screen rips the shadows away from her.]

O shit :o

>       Octa-Green kept to the shadows and rooftops, but was alert for security
> cameras and other sensors as well.  Kips Bay wasn't half disaster zone like
> some neighborhoods, nor was it a construction site like Stuy Town.  It had
> never quite fallen below viability, and the shopping center had even stayed
> mostly open during the roughest times.

Speaking from a timeline where the malls are closing, that's impressive

> The Screamer would be stuck somewhere
> hard to access on a victim, such as the middle of their back (and hope they
> didn't have weirdly jointed cyber-arms) and then set off what amounted to a
> rape alarm.  That'd get the attention of the Hangmen, who could presumably
> help their cyberjacked comrades.  So, the plan was to find the jacked
> Cybernostra, trail them a little while to get some idea where they might be
> going, then slap on a Screamer before they could vanish into Jacky's body
> banks.

Hmmmmm, reasonable.

>       "Oooh, what's that?" asked a voice from behind her.
>       Whirling, she could only barely make out two glints of eyeshine in the
> darkness.
>       One of Bathory's catboys, no doubt.

^owo^ *notices u*

>       Octa-Green pointed the back of her left fist at the catboy and flared
> her gem for just a moment, a trick she'd figured out a few weeks ago.  It
> should have outlined her target, but instead he vanished along with the
> shadows...all except for his eyes, which brightly reflected the verdant
> flash.
>       "Tsk, tsk, greenhorn, no getting rid of the shadows, no no!  The shadows
> are Inky's friends!"

Huhhhhh. :o

>       And suddenly he was in front of her, a hand clamped around her wrist,
> she reflexively twisted to break the hold, and then gasped as the shadows
> around her arm were pulled off in his grip!
>       "The shadows like Inky more than they like YOU," he taunted, giggling.

Welp. D:

>       "Run?  Run run run got the zoomies!" Inky started racing around the
> rooftop, sometimes in shadow and sometimes in light, and every time he got
> close he pulled away more of her shadowy sheath, despite her best efforts to
> hold onto the power.

This is a heck of a creative fight. X> <3

> Goncharov's Clock Tower was a quirky place,
> decorated with memorabilia from TwenCen mob movies and otherwise having a
> vibe that suggested skulduggery behind every privacy curtain.

Oh my god that's right you said you were gonna include this. X3 <3 Delightful.

> The privacy
> curtains were no relic of the past, though, incorporating extremely effective
> anti-eavesdropping tech, both mundane and anti-telepathic.  That made it a
> favored place for MetaPsych employees to relax off the grounds of the World
> Trade Center campus, since it was technically not At Work but still let the
> telepaths on staff shut out the mind-noise of the city and enjoy a meal with
> only those minds they chose to be with.

Awwwww, lovely.

>       She looked over at the big clock over the bar, which itself was
> cunningly wrought to evoke the exterior of a clock tower at night.

Delightful~

>       Jessa turned to the waiter, who dressed the part of a mid-TwenCen Mafia
> stereotype, and gave him a quick look.  He nodded, and tapped out the order
> on his tablet.

It's like a maid cafe! n.n He's going to use his tommy gun to make your meal 
more delicious!

> There were other players five years ago who had a vested
> interest in not letting things just fade out, and if the applecart hadn't
> been upset by our friend, someone else almost definitely would have done it
> soon enough.  Not to get all Hari Seldon, but the historical inevitability
> was there.

Heeheehee

>       Maddie nodded.  Rebus, the Anchor who helped found the Conclave of
> Super-Villains, had also set himself up for a time as a false Odin, setting
> the entire city to hunting Warden.  Given how wide-ranging Rebus's plans had
> been, going way beyond anything even Jessa could (or would) confirm, it made
> sense that Archangeli had been laying the groundwork even before Warden
> started his crusade.

Mmmmmm, fair...

> But there'd been no sign of Rebus for years, and rumors
> that he'd angered the gods and...that had been that.

He sure did. o3o;

> You've told me some of your
> concerns, that the girls seem to be going to more extreme versions of
> themselves?"
>       Maddie nodded.  "The very first day I met most of them, one pointed out
> that they already knew that the gems sharpened and enhanced their
> personalities, not just their physical abilities.  But lately, it's gotten
> worse.  Verging on obsessive behavior, and our fifth member didn't seem to be
> all that stable even without her gem."

Hrmmmmm, I see...

>       "I still have some left," she mockingly pointed at her right fist.  "How
> about I stick 'em where the Sun doesn't shine?"
>       "Oooh, butt stuff on a first date?" Inky smirked.  She couldn't see his
> face, but she could definitely tell he was smirking.

XD Jeez, she's _trying_ to be stylish, nerd

> That's when she let him have the reverse "Wing Chun" style kick in the face.
> Maybe she'd never been on Michelle Yeoh's level as a normie, but even at half
> power she was good enough to manage Yeoh's moves now.

HELL YEAH. :D

>       "You have my shadows, and now you have my...sole," Octa-Green taunted as
> she turned the attack into a cartwheel and sprang away.  "Or aren't you
> getting your kicks anymore?"
>       "I'd say I'm not into feet, but let's save some mystery for next time,"

X3 Good banter.

>       "What kind of...!" Maddie choked off the sentence and stared daggers at
> Dhriti.  They were kids, and Jessa was right, the gems were making them do
> stupid things without the pectoral's moderating influence.

X>;

>       "Did he really refer to himself in third person, like Killgamesh did?"
> Liv asked.  "Because that is really annoying after a while, I wonder if
> whatever's giving these guys extra power is doing something to their brains
> so they can't just say 'I' like a normal person, yah?"

Oh dear. X3;

> A friend of mine who
> does counseling suggested some journaling exercises I want you to do, try to
> get a handle on these extremes before one of you gets killed acting out your
> iconic inner nature or whatever."
<snip>
> Power up, type in your answers to the questions, then power down and see if
> you still think the answers you gave are reasonable."
>       Maddie hoped it would shock them into recognizing the extremes to which
> they'd been going, but worried that the effects of the gems had already
> started bleeding over into their regular lives.

Mmmmmmm. *nodnods*

>       Ah, for the simpler times when she only had to worry about things like
> friends being handcuffed to nerve gas bombs while half the city chased them
> through the night.

You know, now that I've been thru the pandemic, relatable. x-x

>       Goncharov is to mafia movies what Suicide Squid is to comics.  Instead
> of rec.arts.comics in the early 90s, though, it involves Tumblr in the early
> 2020s.

Yeah, that's a good summary. :>

> Jessa has enough insider
> knowledge that she might be aware of the general shape of the Pyramid Scheme,
> but it's one of those things she has not shared with Maddie...the fewer
> people know that apotheosis is possible, the better for everyone.

Yeah. o3o;

>       Wing Chun (1994) is a real movie, and Michelle Yeoh is awesome in it,
> kicking people in ways one would not think humanly possible.

:D :D :D

Drew "watched Everything Everywhere All At Once recently and it was AMAZING" Nilium