Recent content by The World

The campaign was taking its toll on him. Night after night, the World hunted, but the prey had adapted. Maybe he'd taken out the easy ones - or maybe the smart ones had learned not to congregate in their usual spaces. The city felt the same, if not worse. He'd lost his old identity when he'd...

"Buddy, I'm already there," he admitted with a shrug. It wasn't a deflection of the man's sober words. This was the first person he'd actually talked about what he was doing with, and twisted as he might have been, the World could feel the empathy in his tone. He didn't want to shoot him down...

"You're right," he chuckled. "This matters more than my job. Once they identify me, this will be a full time gig. Civilian life will be over." Smith's gaze turned from the vigilante before him to the black shroud of the executioner's mask he held in his hands. His grip on the fabric tightened...

"Ah," he said. It was in line with the question he'd asked, but the answer was still touching. A friend lost on the job. And he had a no-kill rule, so this wasn't a policeman. This happened afterward. That detail was interesting. Usually it was the other way around - lose somebody, then become...

"You take what needs doing into your own hands," he supplied. "I get that." This was no interrogation. The details about the police lifestyle were something to remember, but bore as little relevance to the man before him as his day job at Δcorp. That was an aspect of his life which had steadily...

"Neither," he replied, "Because I don't move like other people move." The idiosyncratic answer was delivered with characteristic matter-of-factness that showed only that the original question made perfect sense to its asker. Showing off his ability to move without walking, he simply reappeared...

Police entered the room and identified him by name. He was impressed by that, not because of their investigative skills, but because it meant that his profile had grown. He didn't carry any kind of ID while going out, so they'd identified him by his face. Naturally, this meant his civilian life...

"Oh, of course not." The World faded again when Cryptid moved to shoulder through him. Randall knew better than to get into a contest of strength with someone who'd just slid down the side of a wall with one hand. Trying to pull a move like that would dislocate a normal man's shoulder. Distance...

"A villain?" At first, he was tempted to leave it at that. A one-word response laden with disbelief leveled not at the boy's message but his choice of words. Villain, to him, was a word used by kindergarteners to describe Darth Vader. He scoffed harder than he'd scoffed at nearly anything in...

"A trophy? Wasn't your kill." The line was delivered with an intonation that might leave a listener uncertain whether he genuinely misunderstood what Cryptid was doing with the finger. The flat, raspy voice of the teleporting vigilante was complemented by his featureless mask, like an...

Floating in the depths of surreality, at peace, the World's consciousness felt like an infinitismally small white dot amidst a sea of endless primordial blackness. Then, in a flash, like the big bang, his thoughts exploded across the vast ocean, sensation expanding to fill out every corner of...

"Well, nobody's perfect." The World shrugged, looking at the carnage he'd left in the wake of the teleporting rampage. He didn't usually stick around this long after finishing up. "What about you? Do you have a 'strict non-lethal thing' too?" he asked, eyebrow raised inquisitively under the...

As a possible consequence of what he suspected to hear, Randall couldn't parse whether Cryptid was telling the truth or not about whether Phoenix had mentioned him. He strongly expected she would have, given the circumstances of their last parting. He brought his hands together. Not too loudly...

"Oh?" The World, in the corporate sphere, was a manager. He reported to his own boss, but managed others in turn, whenever he wasn't doing this. And though he wore a mask, and took on a new name, the old attitudes and thought processes persisted. He had appreciated the youth's skill, and his...

As Cryptid walked away from him, the World vanished. He reappeared in the warehouse, this time without a sound. When done slowly, and deliberately, rather than as a reflex, his power was silent. So, as Cryptid stepped forward through the doors, Randall Smith was already there waiting for him...