Racial Profiling

[Jason Blood]

The cold air of this realm bit into his exposed skin as he walked, the heat beneath prickling in protest at the insolent assault. New Jersey, they called it, this appropriated land, as if men had gazed upon these American planes and somehow been reminded of a quaint isle at sea beyond Anglia's southern shores. It was a habit; an addiction; a vice of these Americas: to steal words with no concept of what they meant. New Jersey, New York, New England. Boston, Birmingham, Cambridge, Bristol. What did the Americans who uttered those names with such pride know of the legacy they had co-opted? Even this monstrosity of a city, this Gotham, stole from the green and pleasant lands of his home. What right had they to such names?

Blood's ire towards their choices was earned. He had been there when York, when England, truly were new. He had watched Britannia come into being; watched invasion after invasion sweep through those lands, each time leaving something new behind. Anglian history was wounds, scars, something inflicted upon her lands and upon her people. Their legacy was endurance, and survival, long before Kings and Queens turned their thoughts to empires and foreign shores. These Americas, this bastard child of darker colonial times? The only legacy they earned for themselves was as thieves.

He had been a different man back then, of course. A lesser man, but a better one; or perhaps not. The failings of that better man were what had condemned him: a deal born of avarice, of hubris, of lust, sealed in his weakest moments, and paid for over an eternity since. He had been a knight, once, but such nobility was gone from him now: not taken, but bargained away; betrayed by his own vices. Now he was something else, both less, and more. A relic. An echo. A harbinger.

A warning.

This land of thieves was all to keen on breeding more of the same, Blood had learned. Such was the ilk that he pursued today: a common breed, prolific and persistent, but starved of wisdom. Were that not the case, they would have known better than to stray into the shadows of the Gotham quarters that fell beneath his gaze. They would have known better than to plague the lives of people he knew, of neighbours whose lives he could not quite unshackle himself from the darkness within to care for, and yet whose existence was a comfort to him. They had upset the balance of his ecosystem, disrupted the fabric of the approximated normalcy that he had tailored for himself amid this hell on Earth. That slight, that trespass, would not be allowed to stand.

Blood watched as the last sheen of sunlight disappeared beyond horizon's view. The criminals of Gotham were conditioned to fear the bat that awaited them in the shadows. The fools knew not the deeper darknesses that awaited them in the night.

"Gone," he uttered. "Gone."

The words blistered like hellfire on his tongue and lips. Beneath his skin, his blood boiled.

"The form of man."

He staggered, stumbling forward through the concealed alley, catching himself against the concrete corner of a building. A smear of blood lingered as the skin of his fingers began to crack, but in moments the blood was flame, and then gone. The hand rose to his forehead, a reflex against the agonising pain that seared through his skull. Wisps of hair brushed away on his fingers, dissolving to ash as they departed from him. His voice was raw, hoarse, the transformation already underway; but the words continued, compelled from within, a sentence that once begun could not be ended.

"Unleash the demon -"

One last stumbling step was taken, the body hunching, doubled in pain. Sinews popped and cracked as shoulders shifted and disjointed. Skin sloughed away, boiled into a fluid that slicked downwards before evaporating into steam and sulphur, exposing the ochre flesh beneath. Spiked horns erupted from where hair had once been, nails shredding and extending their way into claws, teeth stretching and sharpening into fangs. The smell of brimstone and ozone filled the air, as enchantment transfigured the tailored clothes into ragged robes.

[Etrigan]

"Etrigan."

The demon's eyes snapped open, pupils wide and filled with fire. His lips curled into a snarl, nose twitching as he sniffed at the ill tidings that lingered on the breeze. He was free. Unleashed. His jailer had unshackled his chains. Such an act was not done without purpose, without cause. His eyes closed, a moment of reflection taken. Thieves. Bandits. Pursuit. A fanged mouth formed a hungry smile, a pointed tongue caressing a sharpened enamel edge. No heroism, no higher calling, just simplicity.

A hunt.

Bowed and twisted legs shifted, muscles and sinews of hellfire steel stretching and recoiling as they flung the demon into the air. Claws dug into the masonry, first hands, and then feet; he flung himself further, bounding upwards from the rooftop above. Low and half-hunched he scampered forwards, halting at the building's edge to perch like some gargoyle of flesh, not stone. He could smell them on the breeze: their sin, their avarice. It tasted orange on his tongue, and his mouth oozed with red-tasting saliva at the thought of it. Westwards, towards the setting sun. His ears twitched, filtering through whispers from all directions. Familiar voices. Meaningless words. The sound of stolen cargo being loaded into one of man's metallic carts, only a few towers of stone away.

"The demon comes; a price you'll pay -"

The demons voice was a hiss, a rumble, a growl; a chilling cacophony of creatures, their voices woven into one chilling sound. His words continued as he sprung forth, surging forth as a predator in pursuit of his prey.

"You shall regret these acts today!"

[Hal Jordan]

Hal Jordan's coffee was bitter. For such a wealthy company as Wayne Enterprises was, they sure seemed to cheap out on the grade of coffee they provided to their workforce in their myriad break rooms. Or perhaps it was just the aerospace division. Possibly an intentional slight to just the test pilots, Hal snorted as he told himself. Still, on a cold night, anything was better than nothing in his barely-insulated, Wayne-branded travel mug, and he sipped at his stale, yet warming brew, while his left hand remained jammed into the pocket of his jacket.

New Jersey. In all his life he never thought he'd wind up back in New Jersey. His brief stint at McGuire AFB had been more than enough of a taste, and a sour one at that, from his Air Force Days, and yet he found himself back, a month into his new job, in Gotham City.

It wasn't all bad, he supposed. Wayne Aerospace had managed to overlook - or at least ignore - the incident which forced him out of the Air Force, as well as how he managed to both fly and crash a flightless trainer with no explanation at Ferris Aircraft in California. Ahh, California. It'd still be tee shirt and jeans weather, there, he reminded himself as a cold wind blew up his back, and he cinched his jacket tighter. On the dark, gritty streets of Gotham, California seemed a million miles away. At least his apartment was close. Well, relatively close. Close to the subway stop he'd gotten off at, anyway, so it'd be just a few more blocks to his cramped, cold apartment, and he missed his Coast City beach house even more.

"At least you've got a job, Hal," he mused out loud, words turning to mist upon the frigid night air. "Might not pay well, but it gets you in the air, and it's better than flipping burgers at Big Belly. And... ugh, what is that smell?" His stream of consciousness was interrupted by some wafting foul stench blown through an alleyway. Unable to deny his curiosity, Hal found himself drawn to investigate, swigging down the last of his coffee as he peered into the darkness beyond, only to be rewarded by a hulking flash of yellow from the other end, which hurled itself up onto a rooftop.

"Don't do it, Hal," he told himself. "You've got a big flight in the morning, don't do it, don't..."

[Green Lantern]

"Do it." The words escaped his lips as a statement of need, not one of despair. Travel mug stuffed into his jacket pocket, Hal sprinted into the alleyway. A cursory check for bums or witnesses was performed, and when none were found, a transformation came over himself as well. His flight jacket, pants, and knit cap melted away as a new uniform washed over his body. Skin-tight, seamless, and perfectly clean, the green, black, and white uniform of a Green Lantern Corps member consumed his body, while a green domino mask helped to conceal his identity, complete with whited-out eyes. All of it flowed from the ring on the middle finger of his right hand.

No longer did he stumble on liftoff, instead taking to the skies in a green bolt as he darted up to trace the path of the monster he had glimpsed. The Green Lantern had been spotted in Gotham a few times now, but Hal had tried to keep his activities under the radar, doing most of his practice in a remote location upstate. This wasn't going to be another cock-up like he'd experienced with that Robin Hood guy, no, he could handle this on his own. Gone was the intense green glow he'd started with, reduced to a minimal halo around his form. Sure, he could eliminate it entirely if he wanted, but a touch of light added to his mystique, or so he preferred to imagine.

Once airborne, it took little effort to spot the beast as it rampaged from rooftop to rooftop, hurling itself like some great, acrobatic ape. Ape. Huh, didn't he see a report on the news once about the Flash doing battle with some big apes? Or was it a shark? The Flash had the strangest opponents, he thought to himself as he shook his head in order to clear it. Perhaps this would be his first great villain takedown! That thought in mind, Hal swooped down to the next rooftop in the creature's path, hoping to cut it off.

"Woah there, big fella!" He called out with a laugh, hovering a few feet above the ground as his ring emitted a hard-light projection of tall, green stone walls, reminiscent of those from some old European castle, around the beast once it landed upon the next roof. He regarded the beast through a hard-light portcullis, unsure of just what he was looking at, but it certainly wasn't good. "Rooftop running in these parts is reserved for our resident vamipre, from what I hear."

[Etrigan]

Fire and rage boiled and broiled inside the demon, as a tasteless, simpleton's rendition of Camelot's walls manifested around him. It was a cruel mockery, not merely to cage him, but to do so with a fragment of his past, long left behind but not forgotten. Yet, as Etrigan's amber nostrils flared, it was not the whiff of the arcane that tainted the night air, but the acrid ozone notes of free will. The demon snarled as he peered back through the illusory gateway, his assailant floating aloft like some oversized fey creature on unseen wings. The visage he regarded conjured to mind thoughts of Locksley - not the original, of course, but rather his recent imitators - but while green, and masks, and unfortunate tights were there in abundance, there was no bow or quiver to be seen. Instead Etrigan's senses found themselves drawn away from the verdant masonry, following the unseen strands of energy and thought towards their focus: a ring.

The observation caused something to stir in the back of Etrigan's mind, memories of his host, the Blood Knight, seeping into his conscious thoughts. A student of history and the occult, Jason Blood knew much about rings, both mystical and otherwise. Camelot had experienced more than their fill, and there were fabled others that might have held some underlying foundation of truth: rings to summon, rings to protect, rings to enchant, or charm, or render invisible; Solomon, Percival, Gyges, Odin, Al-Shamardal. Other thoughts too leaked from the slumbering mind of his host: thoughts of the wild magic of The Green, and those who used it; of Spectres, and Lanterns, and others once encountered who wielded a power that seemed and tasted in some way similar. But the recognition was fleeting, a familiar ingredient in an unfamiliar recipe, specific recognition masked by flavours that seemed foreign to the realms with which the demon was familiar.

Uncertainty bolstered his anger, and with no conscience to urge him to the contrary, he indulged it eagerly. A breath billowed from his lungs, golden hellfire spewed into the palm of his hand, arm reeling back to hurl it forth like a boulder from a catapult, a streaking comet of mystic yellow arcing towards the fortification of light. On impact, it shattered through the projected gatehouse as if it were made of glass, and Etrigan stood, snarling in the breach.

"So proud you are, fool man of green,
That in your trap a demon caught;"

The words were bestial, spat past fanged teeth with feral intensity, edges singed and seared with the crackle and roar of infernal flames; and yet beneath them, woven as the breeze that stoked the flames, a second whispered voice was carried forth, a faint echo of the man whose form had been shed and left to wither on the floor of the alley below. Though fanciful, almost musical, the words carried with them a strange power, like those of an incantation that as yet had no form or purpose.

"But challenge me not, and flee this scene:
I am that which you before have fought."

[Green Lantern]

Hal's whited eyes widened as he watched his emerald Camelot crumble beneath the... thing's assault, and he found himself subconsciously backing away midair. What manner of beast could summon fire like that? Was this thing a dragon? Is that what dragons looked like? In that case, were all fantasy artists just so totally shit that they can't draw a dragon correctly? Questions ran through his head one after the other, leading him down a merry path of distraction until one brought him back to reality. How did it know to use yellow?

Those white eyes narrowed again, Hal moving in closer as he studied the strange being before him. "Before have fought?" he scoffed. "Listen, buddy, I'm pretty sure I'd remember you. Demon, you say? In that case, why don't you do us both a little favor and mosey on back to Hell, before I have to bust you for trespassing."

It was honestly the worst charge Hal could think of in the moment, and as soon as he said it, he realized how lame it truly was. He'd been rash and impulsive, acting on instinct instead of surveying the situation. That Robin Hood guy had told him much the same on their first and only encounter, and here Hal was doing it all over again. Still, he was here now, and he might as well survey the situation as it unfolded, instead of being too hasty. That and he needed time to think of a plan on how to stop... whatever hulking beastie McRymes-A-Lot was.

[Etrigan]

So literal was the world of men these days. As magic had bled from the notions and notice of the masses, so too had all the grace and poetry of the world. It was still said that words had power, but it was a pale echo of what that sentiment had once meant; and that knowledge, disregarded into secrecy over the generations since, had become the exploited tool of those who blundered upon it. They wielded with brute force what had once been handled with finesse. Men were dumb, impressionable, foolish; this one as much as any.

"Think not of how I might appear,
Such simple thoughts are seldom right;
What demons are, you see, is fear,
And that is what will always fights."

As Etrigan spoke, crackles of infernal incantation dancing through the rough and viscous lava flow of his words, he unleashed a slow and rattling breath, that tumbled from his lips like ash and smoke, clawing at the rooftop like a persistent shadowy fog. A minor conjuration, a mere puff of brimstone and dark magic; but into it, Etrigan whispered the screams of the damned, faint echoes of pain and suffering to chill the bones and curdle the blood. This emerald knight spoke of Hell as if it were some mere turn of phrase; were it up to him, Etrigan would have taken the time to remidy and reeducate him of that misunderstanding, but his other self, his vessel, clawed at the back of his consciousness, urging him towards the purpose for which he had been unleashed.

Etrigan's eyes narrowed, shrinking into smouldering hellfire coals.

"Perhaps it is you who now should mosey,
Back to somewhere quaint and cosy,
For it is unwise for you to stand,
Between this demon, and his task at hand."