I would like to thank the kind folks on the Onyx Path Forum for helping giving me inspiration

Disclamer: I do not own World of Darkness.

South Boston

D Street Projects

April 9, 2011

Beep

Beep

Beep
"The alarm clock made its shrill noise all over the apartment, letting whoever owned know it was time to get up and start the day./p

"Damn it".

This voice came from the bed in the center of the room. Suddenly, a thin pale arm stretched out from the navy blue blanket and pressed the off button on the alarm. The arm's owner then emerged from under his blanket. This man was about 25 years old. As he started to get out of bed, he rubbed his hands against his Emerald Green eyes and let out a loud yawn" . As he went about his morning routine, he turned on his radio to the local news station. As he got dressed, he suddenly paused with his blue jeans halfway up his legs. What caught his attention was a news report about a Magadon research facility in Louisiana going up in a fiery inferno in the middle of the night. The man couldn't help but smirk as he heard this news. He let out a small chuckle as he said to himself," What do you know, Paladin actually went and did. For weeks, he had been talking about burning down the Harris Facility but the man thought he would never do it.

According to the report, the fire was caused by an accelerant, most likely gasoline. Also according to the report, all though the building had been destroyed only two fatalities were reported. The casualties were the chief researcher of the facility, Daniel Ogden, and the arsonist himself. The report later went on to state that while Dr. Ogden died from being buried under burning rubble, the arsonist himself was, much to the confusion of the coroner's office, already dying from various slashes and gashes across his body with the fire serving to finish the job. After the report was finished, the man looked visibly shaken as he turned off his radio. Could it be true? Could Paladin, the avenger of New Orleans be dead? The man however, had no time to ponder on this, for he had to go to work. With a final sigh, he finished getting dressed. Besides blue jeans, the man was wearing the familiar uniform of a Herrick's employee, complete with a plastic name tag that had the name Gerald Fields on it.

As Gerald left his apartment and ventured out into the busy streets of South Boston on his daily commute to work he thought about the news report he just heard and the apparent death of Paladin. He sighed as he thought back about three months ago when his best friend Dennis, an avid superhero geek, introduced him to Paladin's website on the Deep Web. Apparently, according to the site, which was really more of a blog, Paladin was a costumed vigilante, apparently the first of his kind, who patrolled the streets of New Orleans dressed as a knight, dispatching of criminals in various way, most of which were fatal. According to his blog, Paladin stated that he was on a "Crusade" to bring righteous judgement to as many criminals as possible before his demise. Surprisingly, at least to Gerald, Paladin's way of handling criminals caused him to develop a loyal following, which Paladin himself called his "Disciples." Eventually, Gerald himself became enthralled by Paladin and his postings of his nightly "vigils" over the Big Easy. Now, he was probably dead. As Gerald arrived at his work place, he made a note to himself to check Paladin's website when he got home from work.

8 Hours Later

Gerald walked into his apartment and slammed the door behind him as he entered. It had been an extremely stressful day at work with customers complaining about the quality of food, kids whining about their parents not buying them ice cream and other annoyances that came with working in a supermarket chain like Herrick's. Usually, Gerald is a pretty laid back individual who takes these annoyances with stride. But today, he ended up getting written up by his manager after he lost his temper and got into an argument with an extremely belligerent customer. As Gerald took off his work uniform these words echoed in his head./p

" Your nothing but a loser! You know that!?"
"These were the words that caused the argument between Gerald and the customer. As Gerald looked around his shitty studio apartment, he let out a sigh as he thought to himself," Oh God, that bastard's right." Gerald had always known that his life wasn't exactly fancy living but, he always tried to keep an optimistic attitude about his situation. But, looking around at his current state of life with now opened eyes, he realized just how big of a loser he really was. With a heavy sigh, he sat down on a chair near his desk and logged into his computer. As his computer booted up, Gerald thought to himself," I got to find a way to turn my life around, and quick."/p
Suddenly, Gerald heard a loud beeping noise which immediately brought him back into reality. Looking towards the origin of the noise, he couldn't help but grin when he realized that the noise came from his trusty computer, which he affectionately nick-named," Old-Betsy". With a wide grin, Gerald started to use his computer while saying," Alright Betsy. Let's see what Paladin post overnight." Getting on the website was a hard task, because it was deep in the Dark Web and took a specialized browser tool to even reach it. After an hour of browsing, Gerald finally managed to reach Paladin's site./p

The page Gerald was one was colored black with words colored red on them. These words were links that led to various parts of the site like ;"My Crusade","Chat", Blog", ETC. Gerald immediately clicked on Blog and was sent to a new page which was mostly like the homepage. But, instead of red colored-links that lead to different parts of the site. There were blog titles like " Raid on Crack Den", " A New Crusade against Louisiana's Street Gangs", and " The Many Sins of the Sheriff of the Mosswood Township". A post titled," The Future", immediately caught his interest. Gerald immediately clicked on the post and immediately began to read the paragraphs that appeared on the screen.

"My Loyal and Devoted Disciples. "Tonight, I go on what might be my final assignment. Though I know death is a great possibility, I'll do this great task with the same honor and zeal I have displayed to you over this past year. The sins of the Harris Research Facility, and by association, Magadon Pharmaceuticals, have been brought to my attention. The Harris Facility is guilty of cruel experimentation on animals to test cosmetics. I attend to assault the facility tonight and punish the facility for their cruelty. If I fail to return tonight, assume that I have perished. If this is the case, I then implore; no beg of you, my loyal disciples. I beg you to continue my crusade.
I want you to follow my footsteps and go on a crusade on the criminal element of your city. Wear costumes, work together, hide your true identities; do everything you can to make this Crusade successful. I wish you luck my disciples and let God bless you and your crusade.
Paladin

Gerald had a visible grin that spread ear to ear. He immediately backtracked back to the homepage and clicked on the link that leads to the chat room. As he waited for it to buffer, he said to himself with that grin still plastered on his face," I know exactly how I can turn my life around."