Shadows and Stardust: A Tale of Ambition & Quest for Recognition

In the shadows, the wolf pack teaches us the art of protection — fierce, silent, and unwavering. The pack guards its territory not with aggression, but with an innate understanding of its boundaries. In this silence, there’s power, and in this power, there’s a lesson: protect what's yours, not with noise, but with the quiet strength of an ever-watchful guardian. – Wolves and their Nature

Operation Menu: Phase Dinner (D-142 hours)

FRAGO: Operation: Marianne's Vigil (D+1 hour)

“White Witch, this is um T.C., I mean Tunnel..wait, do I use my real name?” T.C. asked pausing for a moment to think and then inhaling deeply. “You should know my voice by now, at least I hope so. Oh right, I shouldn’t talk too long. I’m good, the dog is good, and my battle buddy is good, I’m done…errr out.”

Indigo giggled as he shook his head with amusement.

“Sorry, I’m not really good at talking in front of others,” T.C. said and running his fingers through his hair.

“It just takes a bit of practice, and don’t hold your breath. I once saw a manager pass out from holding his breath during a meeting,” Indigo said and giggled again.

“Really?” asked T.C.

“Almost fell right on top of me,” Triumph added.

Strolling down the street Indigo and T.C. turned the corner and noticed that seven teens were hanging around the steps of a brown brick residential building. The teens wore black work pants, red flannel shirts, and matching red bandanas.

Indigo chewed on his lower lip while T.C. checked the street signs.

“4th Street and D,” T.C. said, as he checked the street signs and flexed his arms. “Heck, these punks are on our turf. Think we can take them, or should we call for backup?”

Triumph sniffed the air and began to growl. Indigo glanced down at his dog and back to the older teen that was approaching them. Triumph nodded slightly.

“No need to trouble the others, we got this,” Indigo said in a hushed whisper.

The thug who moved towards them drew his switchblade from a back pocket and popped it out the blade with a flick of the wrist. He leaned back and flashed his teeth, one of which had a ruby embedded into it.

He pressed two fingers to his temple and said, “I’m Mike-6, and you two trogs are trespassing in the Suicide King kingdom.”

Triumph stopped growling.

“You take out this chump, I’ll merc the two clowns that are trying to flank us from behind,” Indigo telepathed.

Under the flickering streetlights, T.C. and Mike-6 glared at each other. Mike-6 narrowed his eyes and inched closer, swaying from side to side.

As T.C. neared, his shoulders squared, and he threw out his hands to show that it was empty.

"Last time I checked, this is Thornewood turf, we took it from the Eastland Posse," T.C. said, his voice cut through the night.

Mike-6 sneered back, his lips curling into a toothy grin.

"And the Suicide Kings are gonna’ to take it back this hood," he retorted checking around for others. "From the looks of it, I see two trogs and a mutt."

Laughter erupted from Mike-6's gang. The air grew heavy as the teens began to stand, a symphony of cracking knuckles and unsheathed weapons filled the silence.

T.C.’s began to smirk.

"How rude of me," he replied coolly, his fingers snapping in a quick, trained motion. "Boss Kitty would be totally cross if I didn’t give you and your gang a proper welcome to our neighborhood."

In the blink of an eye, a metallic glint caught the dim light as the electric jack pick materialized in T.C.’s hand. The weapon hummed with ever increasing pitch as it charged up. With lightning reflexes, T.C. grabbed Mike-6 by the collar, his grip vice-like, and thrust the weapon close to Mike-6's face.

“But I’m broke right now,” T.C. said flicking the safety off. “So, the first round of shots is on you.”

As the Suicide King’s fanned out, Triumph lunged at the nearest rival gang member. The impact was swift and powerful as Triumph tackled the foe to the ground against asphalt. As the gang member crumpled beneath Triumph's weight, the dog’s maw opened wide. With a loud crunch the dog ripped his face off and turned the thug blue. His body disappeared.

Indigo unsheathed his staff and twirled it in front of him. Two members of the Suicide Kings charged him. One wielded a curved sword ablaze with eerie reddish flames, while the other brandished a pair of green-bladed daggers.

Mike-6 lunged at T.C. with a flick of his switchblade, aiming for T.C.’s hand. T.C. pushed Mike-6 back and threw him off balance. A split-second later, T.C. fired a single bolt from his jack pick.

The bolt shot through the air and pierced through Mike-6’s head. The tungsten-carbide bolt, continuing its trajectory, impaled into the shoulder of the gang member behind Mike-6. The impact was swift, and sent shockwaves through his body and he fell to one knee.

Before Mike-6 could even hit the ground, his face drained of color, and he vanished suddenly, and teleported away. His disappearance left his gang momentarily stunned, they stared at each other confused and suddenly without a leader.

“And the Bunny Buster claims another victim,” T.C. said and reloaded his jack pick.

Indigo held his staff close to his chest when the curved sword slashed towards his body. He flicked his wrist and the attack bounded off towards the thug with the daggers. Then ducked under the wide swing and stepped behind the second attacker.

Indigo danced away from their attacks. With a swift push, he sent his assailant crashing into the sword-wielding opponent. The force of the collision propelled the curved swords forward, finding an unintended target: his ally’s chest. The knives sank deep, eliciting a gasp of pain.

He continued his attack. Indigo swung his staff, and connected, with a solid thud, against the back of the head of his target which disoriented the thug’s vision. The loud crack of the impact rang through the night air, and both attackers, momentarily paralyzed with shock, turned an eerie shade of blue before vanishing into thin air.

A sardonic grin touched Indigo's lips.

"With enemies like you, who needs friends?" he quipped, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he turned, assessing the battlefield.

His eyes flickered with concern as he glanced over at Triumph and T.C., ensuring they were holding their ground.

“You need new material,” growled Triumph and ripped the face off another gang member he had pinned down.

“I thought it was good,” T.C. said.

The Suicide Kings shouted orders at each other. T.C. took aim at the loudest of them and fired another bolt. He tried to hold his hand up to protect himself, but the bolt pierced through his hand into this skull.

T.C. used rapid reload and the jack pick hummed once again. The gladiator who he’d shot in the shoulder began shouting curses at him.

“I was saving this for your friends,” T.C. said and fired the bolt.

The shot, precise and calculated, found its mark, embedded itself into the foot of the thug who had been wounded in the shoulder earlier. He howled in pain, then collapsed to the ground, the impact sent shockwaves through his body.

“Fuck you, you blonde shit,” he yelled.

“Keep one of them alive,” Indigo said and checked to see how many were left.

“Unless you want me to bolt your mouth shut, I suggest you keep quiet,” T.C. said and reloaded his weapon.

“Enough of these no-skill thugs,” Indigo said and slammed his staff, hilt first, embedding itself into the sidewalk. “Crawley’s Lamentation!”

Indigo's eyes crackled with electric intensity as he extended his right hand, conjuring brilliant arcs of blue lightning that raced on the ground toward the remaining Suicide Kings. The air crackled around the base of his staff with energy. The lightning found its mark. The bodies of the remaining gang convulsed uncontrollably. Some, the lucky few, immediately faded into the same shade of pale blue, while others collapsed to the ground. They immediately began to shake violently in uncontrolled seizures.

Indigo pulled his staff from the ground, bringing an abrupt halt to the torrent of lightning.

Those who weren’t killed in the initial attack now vanished, leaving behind silence.

T.C. asked in voice firm, "Whose turf is this?"

"Yours," the teen replied.

T.C., however, wasn't satisfied. His eyes narrowed as he pressed the bolt against the guy’s chin.

"Nope, let’s try this again," he said, a bit louder. "Thornewood. Say it with me: Thorne...wood."

The word rolled off the teen’s tongue, during this Indigo had remained silent, his gaze swept the surroundings.

Then, with a slight nod, Indigo reached into his pocket and pulled out a dog biscuit shaped like an anchor. A low, sharp whistle escaped his lips, and Triumph bounded over.

With a flick of his chin, Triumph accepted the biscuit but didn’t chew it. With the prize in his jaws, Triumph darted off into the dimly lit street, a fleeting shadow amidst the night.

Indigo moved closer and pressed his staff into the chest of the teen and asked, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Wings,” he said whimpering.

“Good, now who’s the sniper?” Indigo asked.

His lower lip trembled as he tried to look around, and his eyes widened.

“The what?” Wings asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Indigo said. “We got an addition to the party.”

Indigo's eyes bore into Wings with unwavering intensity as he twisted the bolt deeper into the teen's foot. Wings gritted his teeth, tears streaming down his face as he endured the excruciating pain. With a swift, decisive motion, Indigo yanked the bolt free, leaving Wings gasping in agony.

"Tell the rest of your gang that when they rez, if it's red…it's dead," Indigo's voice was cold. "Consider this your first and only warning. Stay out of our territory."

He pulled Wings to his feet, his grip firm.

Meanwhile, T.C., with a steely resolve, pulled the bolt from Wing's shoulder. A sharp cry of pain tore from Wing's lips, his arm trembling as he clutched the wound. The momentary relief of the removal was overshadowed by the searing pain that shot through his body.

“Why can’t you talk like that when you are on the comms channel?” Indigo asked.

“I know, right?” T.C. said in a half chuckle.

Wing staggered away; his footsteps echoed down the street as he fled back toward Red territory. Indigo handed him back his tungsten-carbide bolt.

T.C. checked the bolts amid the flickering streetlamp and asked, “What sniper are you talking about?”

“Activate your witch sight, but only the infrared spectrum, anything from 1 to 1,000THz will do,” Indigo telepathed.

“Wait, you can do that? How?” T.C. asked and opened the skill menu.

He searched the icons till he found the picture of a witch with glowing yellow eyes with a wicked grin.

“Ummm,” T.C. said then clicked on the icon. “Just a moment.”

“Once you find Witch Sight, click on settings on the Development tab, on the main menu, go to the Adjust tab, and click on spectrum analysis. I know, I keep forgetting where it is too, so I made a hot key,” Indigo telepathed.

T.C. followed the directions and thought back, “Hotkeys?! Why am I finding out about this now? When I have a chance, I need to sit down with you and learn more tricks.”

After making the necessary adjustments, T.C. activated his Witch Sight, adjusted eyesight honed to the infrared band, and scanned the surroundings. A thin beam of crimson light caught his attention, drawing his focus like a moth to a flame. He tracked the red streak of light until it vanished through a window of a building across the street.

“What the…” T.C. whispered as his voice trailed off.

***

A rickety door burst open and flew off the hinges. Light from the dingy hallway poured in and cast a long shadow into the room.

Triumph sniffed the air and marched towards the back corner of the room.

“You’re a long way from home, sniper,” Indigo’s voice said through Triumph’s collar.

Crouched in the corner was an older man with greying hair, with hints of black, wearing a long dirty brown coat. His eyes narrowed, further wrinkling his face, as he moved his hands away from a long-barreled rifle.

“Easy there, poochie, I was just moseying on through when I heard the ruckus outside, I dipped inside away from the scuffle,” he said in a raspy voice. “I’m a Greenie…see, name’s Jackal, I can prove it.”

He started to open his jacket when Triumph crunched down on the dog biscuit. Pieces of the biscuit hit the ground and lines appeared which filled the room with a glowing-blue grid pattern than ran along the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Triumph just activated a No-Go ward, that means no cloning yourself away, no De Sitter Doors, or punching out,” Indigo said. “If you lie, you die. Now talk.”

“I’m opening my jacket, real easy like,” he said and pulled out a broach covered in emeralds in the shape of a dog.

Under his sweeping long coat, Jackal sported an emerald-green vest. With a slight nod, he displayed the broach shaped like a dog.

“Broach of the Dog earned it at the Battle of the Azure Tower for scrappin’ on the Blue side,” he said and offered it to Triumph for inspection.

Curious, Triumph approached the broach, his nose twitched. However, something didn't sit right with him, both Indigo and Triumph felt. Instinctively, he backed away, Triumph’s animal senses alert as he continued to sniff the air.

Indigo asked, his voice carried an undertone of suspicion, "Where were you headed?".

"To the heights," Jackal replied, his response delivered with a casual demeanor. “Got hired on with the Wheels.”

A bitter scent, laced with deception, wafted from Jackal. Triumph emitted a low growl. Indigo, recognized the canine's signal, issued a terse command.

"Liar...mirror image, now! Sic’em," Indigo ordered.

In a blur of motion, Triumph lunged forward, his image multiplying into a spectral pack of phantasmal hounds. Jackel attempted to evade, but one of the phantom dogs swiftly closed the distance and clamped down on his arm with an ethereal grip. Before Jackel could react, Triumph regained his form, his jaws closed around Jackal's neck with a powerful bite.

A sickening twist of Triumph's jaw and Jackal's larynx was torn out, silencing him.

The sniper's lifeless body crumpled to the ground; his pale body glowed before being swallowed by the darkness of the evening.

***

Indigo had informed T.C. what had happened between Triumph and Jackal.

"So, can you always feel what Triumph is feeling?" T.C. asked, his gaze shifting to the windows as he searched for another sniper.

"Kinda, it’s a bond we share, though I can disconnect at any time," Indigo explained, as he observed Triumph's return. "Especially when he wants to clean himself, if you know what I mean."

T.C.'s curiosity piqued.

"You mean, you can hear everything he does…too?" T.C. asked, his voice stammered and cheeks turning slightly flushed.

Indigo, unfazed, knelt in front of a streetlamp. He pulled out a Corix multitool from his belt, and he began to loosen the screws from the panel on the side.

"You mean what you said to Triumph the other day about Whisper? It’s kinda obvious that you like her, why don’t you tell her?" Indigo asked and placed one of the screws beside his foot.

T.C. hesitated, his hand absentmindedly petting the dog.

"You know…it’s really not that I’m shy or anything, but what if she says no? I bet she had like forty guys flirting with her."

Indigo, still working on the streetlamp, looked up and grinned.

"Sure, but I’ve seen the way she looks at you and plays with your hair," he said, offering a bit of encouragement.

"Yeah, maybe you are right," T.C. sighed, and leaned against the streetlight. "So, who would you go for?"

Indigo scratched his beard, and pondered the question.

"Not sure, Heather and Estelle are cute but not my type, Whisper is downright scary. You and Tauru aren’t my type either. Honestly, I don’t think I have a type," he admitted, his voice thoughtful.

"Oh, I didn’t realize you shopped on both sides of the store," T.C. remarked, trying to keep the conversation light.

As Indigo finished removing the screws, he tossed Triumph a dog biscuit shaped like a bone. Triumph caught it, his tail wagged happily as he crunched on it. Indigo then pulled out the wires from the streetlamp, his hands worked as if he had done this a hundred times.

"I haven’t been shopping in years, had a bad breakup, and now kinda going my own way," Indigo confessed, his tone tinged with a hint of sadness.

Indigo sorted out the jumble of wires he pulled out from the streetlamp.

"Let’s see if I can remember wiring pairings, red and yellow shock a fellow," Indigo muttered and moved the red and yellow wires aside. "Candy cane and ice, sure are nice…there we go."

He separated the white wire and the white wire with red stripes, holding them in his hand. With practiced movements, Indigo used the multitool to strip away a bit of the protective plastic covering.

"I’m all for a bit of anarchy now and then, but this light’s on our turf," T.C. remarked and leaned over for a better view of Indigo’s work.

Indigo pulled out a mini-laptop computer and connected a pair of alligator clips to the white and candy cane wires.

"Back in season one, BC Electric used automatic streetlights, but the fighting at night caused them to flicker on and off like a strobe light," Indigo explained, while he adjusted the knobs on his computer. "That's why they needed to switch to a different system."

Triumph paced in a box pattern around T.C. and Indigo. When he reached the edge of the perimeter, he halted, sniffed the air, turned 90 degrees, and resumed his patrol.

"By accessing the candy cane and ice wire, I can remotely connect to BC Electric, then jump to the city’s central systems," Indigo said, his fingers dancing over the keyboard as he tapped a few buttons on his computer. "From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and jump right into the police database. It’s connected to the same ADA system.”

The computer beeped three times.

“I’m in…no password, no biometrics required,” Indigo said and typed away on his computer. “Upper Management should have patched this up back in the beta phase or compartmentalized the systems, too cheap to hire real programmers.”

“How…do you know all of this?” asked T.C.

Before Indigo could answer another chime rang in the ears. T.C. tapped his ear.

He coughed and cleared his throat, and said, “Wait a sec, I got that update Boss Kitty thing.”

***