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| Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) http://sonic.spindash.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=408 |
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| Author: | Greens [ Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:03 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
... ... "..." In the first few seconds of waking up, fluttering in between consciousness and unconsciousness, his brain struggling on an uphill climb for lucidity... the biggest problem poor Danny was aware of was a gently throbbing headache. It would be a few seconds afterward that he would remember why his head hurt in the first place. For the time being, figuring out where he was felt more important than why. His head swiveled lazily from left to right, unable to take in too much of his surroundings on account of how incredibly... dark everything was. Crushing darkness, and choking silence. He could barely even see his own feet, let alone the chair he was seemingly propped up on. Oh, s#^%. He was on a chair in a dark room. After suddenly recalling the why (there it was), he suddenly felt a lot less comfortable about the how. Shaking the sleep out of his eyes (or at least, so he thought; it would be really great if this were just a nightmare), Ace quickly examined the area as best he could, and summed up the facts as such. He was left sitting on this sorry excuse for a chair. His hands and feet were bound by something heavy and solid. Chains, or shackles, he didn't know. They felt sturdier than a pair of handcuffs, and proved it when he struggled against them. But for whatever reason, they weren't bound to the chair, and he was completely free to stand, and waddle his way around the room. The floor felt like concrete on his naked feet, and decidedly filthy, like it hadn't been used in a long time. Pebbles, and dirt, and... something sticky, and-- oh, that better have not have been what he thought it was. The only item he could really make out in the place was some kind of button-up shirt left on the ground at his feet. 'A real thoughtful sentiment,' he thought. 'If my hands weren't #$&*@# tied behind my back.' Though he wasn't buck-naked anymore, thankfully. Someone had seen fit to cover him up with some ill-fitting trousers, but that was the extent of it. A quiet sigh escaped his nose, and off he went, pacing quietly and awkwardly in his best attempt to find answers and avoid any rusty nails. The last thing he needed was to add Tetanus shots to the list of things to get the instant he got home, along with a new pair of socks and a frickin' cheeseburger. No, a double-cheeseburger. With a tall order of fries... and a chocolate milkshake... He sighed a little more loudly. searchindextag chapter5search |
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| Author: | NPC [ Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:10 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Ace sighed listlessly into the dark room. It was indifferent to him. After a while spent letting the ringing of his freshly-walloped ears subside, however, he would begin to make out the muffled murmur of voices somewhere on the other side of the door. Yes, there was a door; a little searching would uncover a metal door, with a lever-like knob of sorts, the kind of industrial- or commercial-grade door one might expect to find in a factory, or a place of business, or some sort of government building. It was sturdy, for certain, but not indestructible. The voices continued to chatter indistinctly beyond the dark room. It was a language Ace could not understand. |
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| Author: | Greens [ Fri Jun 01, 2012 8:21 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Oddly enough, the voices of persons speaking in a language not his own the next room over did little to comfort him. Things quickly felt like they went from bad to worse as his suspicions rose. Why bind him at all, if not in place? Was there something even sicker planned in mind for him? Maybe it was all idle fretting, but he at least liked to be able to look back and say 'I knew it' when they clamped a monkey wrench to his tongue. Ace pictured the doors opening to a symphony of gunfire, but this chatter was still the best lead he had on anything. So he pressed his less tender of ears against the door, hoping that hearing them better might help them speak his own language. |
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| Author: | NPC [ Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:41 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Luck was unkind to Ace. There came a sharp, eardrum-banging pang against the metal door as if someone had suddenly slammed it from the other side with something very heavy. It pounded like this for several aggressive knocks before unlatching and swinging open, letting (comparatively) blinding light in. Several figures stood in the doorway. One held a lug wrench tightly in his fist. "Rise and shine," said the aggressor (a nobody, from the looks of his scuzzy street attire) through a disarmingly thick Chunese accent that rendered him nearly uninterpretable. |
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| Author: | Greens [ Sat Jun 02, 2012 1:26 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
"AU-uh!" Ace only hoped that his migraine-induced yelp wasn't heard over the other noises they were so keen on making. Sure enough, he spilled himself on the floor, and in the nerve-wracking intensity of the unneighborly knocking, scrambled and struggled to pick himself up. But when you call flat on your ass, and your feet are chained together while your hands are chained up behind your back, and you just had a battering ram more or less crammed up the same earhole that suffered a haymaker from a suit of power armor, and you've been stripped of your shirt and shoes, and you haven't had your coffee yet, it can be pretty difficult. So by the time Ace's new roommates got a full view of him, he was more or less sitting on the floor and using the chair as a pillow, still squinting from the sudden surge of light that poured in. 'A lug wrench,' he thought to himself. 'Well, I was close.' Honestly, it was just a shame. Didn't he just come back from the hospital? All for this crap to get shoveled in his face... He paused and looked at the crew. He managed to crack a smile, but in truth, he was pretty terrified. Just because he'd been through things like this before didn't make them any more pleasant, or any less dangerous. Certainly not with punks like these-- unprofessionals. Careless. Prone to 'mistakes'. In all likelihood, It was very possible that he would die in this room if he didn't think of something soon. So it was only interest of buying more time when he answered in a voice even he didn't expect to sound so worn: "...Five more minutes..." |
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| Author: | NPC [ Sat Jun 02, 2012 10:30 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
The one with the weapon gestured for the other two to grab Ace, and they did, a little roughly, under the arms, and promptly pulled him out faster than he could likely get his footing. No violence yet from the little pack of wild dogs, though. (And they really did look to be some kind of wild, scruffy dogs, from the looks of it.) He was just yanked into a drab, subterranean-looking concrete corridor and pulled along toward— WOOMP. There went the violence. Unprovoked, the one with the lug wrench swung it straight at Ace's gut to knock the wind out of him. It seemed like a preemptive gesture to keep the guy in line—an I'm-the-big-man hit from a cocky youth, the likes of which Ace would have probably scared away with a dirty look under any other circumstances. They laughed and kept barging him along. They'd soon emerge into a bigger, brighter-yet room. Ace wouldn't find it familiar, but it was the very same private quarters Tracer and Archer had visited in their last meeting with Li Fang. |
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| Author: | Greens [ Sun Jun 03, 2012 12:27 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Okay, that didn't... really work. Not surprising, in retrospect. 'Rise and shine' might've been the only phrase the guy knew in English. Maybe he studied just enough to sound smart and intimidating in the presence of the stupid foreigner who didn't know what he was getting in to. And boy, did he ever not know what he was getting in to. The sting of the lug wrench actually caught him off guard with its awkward timing, leaving Ace coughing in pain, along with sore, hungry and tired. He'd been consciously tightening himself up when they popped in to avoid getting the wind knocked out of him, but surprise surprise; he waited until the most awkward timing available. Ace almost hated himself for falling for it as much as he did this tacky punk for getting such a kick out of it. Their laughter almost felt well-deserved. Even any smart-assed one-liners he had in mind would be wasted on slimeballs like these. He just had to hope they weren't in the habit of beating people to death without so much as the grace of letting them know why they were doing it. |
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| Author: | Rachel [ Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:14 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Li Fangs office also held one very purple Llama. She wasn't far from the door, leaning against the wall. She was still mostly armored, instead of her helmet she wore an expression of grim discontent and her shield was no where to be found. She remained silent watching Ace get dragged around by yet another group of questionable thugs that Li Fang employed. She missed the military when working for scum like this. Bullets and battlefields had a way of sorting out the fools and children from the men a lot faster the Li Fang seemed to be able to. Thus far, only one of his minions had proven himself worth the space he took up, which made his loyalty somewhat problematic should this job go south. ...most of her jobs went south. |
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| Author: | Greens [ Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
It was like a surprise family reunion, but with all the good aunts and uncles conveniently absent. That left only her. "Tracer," he growled out like a threat. "You sure know how to hold a grudge. I don't suppose these fine gentlemen are in your employ?" |
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| Author: | NPC [ Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:00 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
One of the guys pulling Ace along kneed him in the lower back. "Shut up!" Guess that was one other phrase they knew. The thug with the lug wrench shook it at Ace's nose and said something that could have been Chunese or English, but was hard to discern, but it seemed to contain the words "not" and "talk." Message clear enough. The cat was soon dragged up toward the desk. Li Fang was not there yet. They'd shove Ace toward the floor in front of the desk, right next to a chair, anyway. The idea was apparently that he'd sit, but that they weren't nice enough to place him in the seat. |
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| Author: | Seafarinhare [ Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:28 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Also in the room, Archer stood. He was in his typical green cloak, and tan tunic and all that. No more signs of his nurse get-up were present, thankfully. That would hopefully never be repeated. He was sitting on a box that was vaguely chair-height. Whether or not it was meant to be sat on was another thing entirely. He watched as the thugs went about shoving Ace into the room and toward his chair. For once, Archer was pretty silent. Not much to say regarding the situation. The importance of capturing this Ace guy was curiously lost on him. |
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| Author: | Rachel [ Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:24 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Tracer didn't respond to Ace, though she watched him get hit without any sort of reaction to the blow and his resulting agony. She did however glance to the buck. It was clear he had no idea why she was in Chun-nan, and certainly wasn't following her. She still felt Li Fang owed her a raise. But the subject had been dropped. The armored equine crossed her arms over her chest and went back to carefully watching the cat for attempts to escape. |
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| Author: | Greens [ Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:31 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
Alright, alright. No talking. Don't wanna ruin the atmosphere. Somehow, that just wasn't as fun, but done easily enough. He'd just have to think of this place as a very aggressively enforced library. It was better than thinking of it as a tomb. As much as he wanted to speak a great number of things, his throbbing sense of self-preservation (to say nothing of his throbbing head) kept his tongue in his mouth. He took a seat. |
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| Author: | NPC [ Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:46 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
The big man himself emerged from another doorway in all his well-dressed, cold-blooded (literally reptilian) glory. He was wearing a very clean-looking, sharp-collared, bleach-white button-up shirt (albeit with top several buttons undone) and dark olive slacks, neatly pressed. His aggressive-lined, lizardly eyes were covered by some lightly-tinted sunglasses with brown lenses. Yes, it was underground, but the chamber had the bright, sunny feel of daylight to it. He wordlessly stopped next to his desk and leaned against its side, eying his guest in completely expressionless silence—not even cold, austere, smug, or devious, just blank, like one would examine a caged animal he wasn't terribly interested in. It was utterly quiet. "I have questions for you," he said plainly, without any markedly-thick accent. He was well-studied. "Some of them I already know the answer to, and some I don't. You will answer them all truthfully, and you'll walk out of this place on your own two feet." He apparently seemed confident enough in his own presence and power to not have to state the alternative—the if-you-don'ts and I-will-be-forced-tos typical of "villainous" sorts of his rank— and left it purely implied, assuming, no, requiring cooperation as a matter of fact. He jumped straight to the first question. "How did you come to arrive in Chun-nan?" |
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| Author: | Greens [ Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Pale blinds drawn (Ch. 5: Day 4) |
When that snow-white man walked into the room, it felt like all the air inside rushed out, and the temperature suddenly felt several degrees colder. The moment Ace saw him, there wasn't a doubt in his mind-- this was Li Fang. He seemed to carry an air of... darkness, around him, for lack of a better word. Something uncanny, but undeniable. Something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Ace steeled his own nerves and prepared a response. Tell the truth and walk away? Sounded like a swell deal. if only the truth didn't sound so much like a friggin' fairytale. Story of his life, right? He looked up to the ceiling and whistled out a sigh before answering, carefully as he could. "...I was with a small group trying to overthrow the empire. We failed, and boarded a small ship we thought would take us back home. But there was a malfunction, and we crash-landed here. We've been trying to find a way out since." |
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