I desperately wanted to do a story based on Rorschach and Nite owl tackling Underboss in the city sewers with the assistance of hoverbikes, as mentioned in the novel-graphic or comic-serial based, your move.
Comments and criticism welcome. Re: criticism - I would claim to be thick skinned but am no more than a wilting rose petal in the coat pocket of a madman, so if there are mistakes, please try not to break my fingers as I have enough trouble typing as it is.
Watchmen does not belong to me...I'm just buggering around with it, is all.
Going Underground.
Strangers in the Nite.
As his knees bent, he could hear a soft click and feel a slight stabbing sensation run up his thigh. He allowed his shoulders to drop and leaned back, releasing a drawn out groan and letting the hard panels of the rusting skip take his weight. The cold, damp weather of late was beginning to play havoc with his bones. He was about to reach his thirtieth birthday and already the twinges in his limbs were increasing.
Frank slid his fingers through his lank black hair and recalled his mother's warning that there was a history of Arthritis in the family on his father's side. Ah yes…his wretched father, the fierce, drunken old fool that he was. He was long dead now and the only thing that he had given his son were bruises, bad memories and a promise of degeneration of the joints.
'Bastard' frank mumbled.
The wind picked up, yet another monstrous element to the bitter weather that taunted him and yet the sweat steadily dripped off his reddened brow. With trembling fingers, Frank fumbled at the catch on the gold and black clutch bag. He heard a soft clack but averted his eyes from the contents. Instead, he let his head fall back against the skip, blinking clinging drops of water from his eyelashes. Hopefully, there would be something worthwhile in the pot of gold and black, something good to come out of this mess. He hadn't meant to kill her, just scare her a little but she had done something the others hadn't done before- she fought back, and Frank saw red.
His brows drew together at the memory realizing with a heavy heart that his hot-headedness was merely another unwelcome attribute he had inherited from his father.
The wind screamed through the gap between the crusty skip and the deserted soap warehouse causing Frank to lose his already unsteady grip on the bag. The high pitched howl made him think back to the girl. Ahh, shit! She hadn't screamed. She hadn't made a noise, not that she could with his trembling hands around her neck. He had only wanted to scare her. The noise came again, rattling broken window panes and screaming louder.
He didn't believe in such things, but it took little imagination to create the dead girl's howling ghostly form waiting for him behind the large metal container.
Frank sniffed and picked up the bag. 'Pull yourself together' he muttered. There were no such things as ghosts. He rose off the floor, again using the metal plate to steady his back. He heard the click in his knee again. Finally he stood, his eyes searching the contents of the bag. There didn't seem to be much. What a waste.
His spine suddenly straightened when he heard a crunch. That was definitely not his knee. The wind was growling now…no, that wasn't the wind! And Oh God...what was that smell?
Frank swung his body round one hundred and eighty degrees, his worn heel hissing with the turn. He moved his gaze down in order to face the apparition that stood before and below him. With growing horror, all Frank saw was the brilliant white face, dripping with moisture. Franks eyes widened and stuttered an expletive which was swept up and away by the wind. My God, she had come back for revenge, he thought. Frank's addled mind didn't notice that the apparition was wearing a fedora or that its body was wrapped within a dark tan trench coat. No, all he saw was her face- her eye sockets, her nose, her lips painted in black and moving ominously against the dead white.
The next sound Frank heard was a bone in his arm snap but this time the thought that it could be impending Arthritis didn't even enter his mind.
...........
Dan stood regally on the ledge of what used to be the Saville Soap warehouse. He had left Archimedes back in her nest. There was no point in trying her out tonight, the weather was too wild and he still wasn't sure if he'd calibrated the thrusters correctly. There would be a time for trials, but for now, Dan didn't want twenty months of solid and lonely work to crack under the strain of unforgiving forces.
He grinned and adjusted his goggles, wondering if it would be a silly notion to invent some wipers for the lenses. The rain was utterly unrelenting and the wind, well, it was trying to compete with it. 'Battle of the superpowers' thought Dan. He shook the thought away when it reminded him of current affairs. Tensions were rising between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.. Hopefully it would be some time before they would reach breaking point.
He felt his shoulders slump. The World was beginning to stockpile enough nuclear armaments to destroy the planet hundreds of times over and here was Dan Dreiberg, in his twenties, perched on a ledge and wearing a suit that made him look like a gigantic owl.
Still, he wasn't the only one. There were others who wore costumes. He had seen Dr. Manhattan many times, a superhero in every sense of the word, who didn't really wear a costume-well, just the one strategically placed item of clothing- and he hadn't actually met him, just seen him on the TV and in magazines.
He knew of The Comedian, mostly due to becoming equainted with the original Nite Owl. Dan thought of Hollis Mason and smiled. He had adored Nite Owl. When he was a kid he wanted to be just like him.
Now he was.
Nite Owl II stared at a couple of black clouds floating across the view of the moon and he suddenly realized that there was one other costumed hero he hadn't met…or even seen. The only ones who had had the pleasure were the criminals who had been caught by the man and their descriptions varied depending on how terrified they were. At least he assumed it was a man.
The newspaper artists had done their best to recreate sketches of the costumed adventurer who was named 'Rorschach', and aptly so thought Dan, remembering the sketched ink blot mask in the newspaper along with a photograph of the small slip of paper the man left as a calling card, bearing symmetrical 'R's, mirrored perfectly. It was a great idea for a mask, and if it wasn't for his love of owls, Dan would have admitted to feeling a little jealous of it.
Dan became aware of his cape clapping furiously in the gale and felt silly again.
Why on earth did he do it?
That's when he heard the scream whooshing past him on the wind.
'Darn it!'
Dan jumped back off the ledge and ran across the roof, in a moment of clarity realising why he dressed up as a gigantic man-owl. He stopped before the opposite ledge and carefully peered over the side. He became increasingly frustrated at his water-logged goggles impairing his vision which just allowed him to make out two figures in the alley. One of them was standing and had an oddly shaped head; the other was lying on the ground-a dot and a slash. Was it a mugging?
Dan stared at the still figure on the ground, pulled at his gloves and clenched his jaw. Perhaps it was a murder? Dan thought and immediately felt guilty on feeling a pang of excitement. His heart started pounding. He had to get down there.
It didn't take him long to spot the stairwell and to lower onto the grating, using his strong grip on the ledge to keep him steady. The groaning of aged metal underfoot after applying his full weight startled him and he gritted his teeth. Dan watched with concern as the standing figure several stories below cocked his misshapen head to the side for a few pulse snapping moments.
After a good few seconds, the odd head turned his attention back to the grounded man. Dan relaxed somewhat and his frustration at the weather swiftly turned to murmured thanks for the blanketing battle cries of the wind and rain but there was still the problem of descending the building without drawing further attention to himself. He thought about using his grappling hook to traverse the buildings and fly down to the scene, but instantly dismissed the idea as too risky. In this gale there was no telling where the hook would end up and if he broke a window, he would sacrifice his position, giving the criminal the option of a head start.
Tonight the owl would have to use its feet.
With each agonisingly placed foot the creaking continued, covered by the noise of ferocious weather. A couple of levels down and Dan realized that the standing man did not have a misshaped head but in fact was wearing a hat. He could also see the man on the ground was badly injured, his arm doubled back on itself-assault!
Dan proceeded to scan the surrounding area. Something next to the man caught Dan's vision. He squinted and noticed the shimmering gold diagonal strips on the bag. It had been opened. Further away from the bag, he could see the unmistakable pattern of light and dark stripes on a small tube of lipstick. It was something from the 'Calrin Cosmetics' range- Dan had seen it before. The Twilight Lady used the same products but there was no lady in this vicinity. Then it was a mugging, but where was the lady? It certainly wasn't Twilight as she never carried a bag and frankly, the mugger wouldn't have stood a chance.
Dan leaned against the railings in order to try and spot the woman who was missing from the equation when the metal grating gave the loudest groan yet. Quick reflexes ensured that he backed out of sight of the man in the hat who whipped around in his direction. Dan sucked cool air into his lungs and smiled, realizing that he was covered by darkness and of course the rain would make it difficult to see movement. Even so, he felt nervous as he slowly edged forward again and just about stopped a gasp from escaping from his wet lips as he stared at the man in the black and white mask.
It was Rorschach and he was looking straight at him.
'My God' mouthed Dan.