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arts / rec.arts.comics.creative / ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're Sleeping

SubjectAuthor
* ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're SleepingDave Van Domelen
`- Re: ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're SleepingDrew Nilium

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ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're Sleeping

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From: dvan...@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're Sleeping
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2021 03:13:11 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Dave Van Domelen - Sun, 12 Dec 2021 03:13 UTC

[the cover shows a small matte black box tied in a dark red
ribbon. "The Gift of POWER...or is it a CURSE?"]

____________________________________________________________________________
.|, COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS An ASH Universe Story
--+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
'|` SHADOW GIRLS #2 - "He Sees You When You're Sleeping"
copyright 2021 by Dave Van Domelen
____________________________________________________________________________

[April 30, 2027 - Chinatown]

Maddie watched as a slim girl dressed in skin-tight dark red shadows
threw a punch at a Snow Leopard hybrid whose coloration matched his gang name
pretty well, more boggled by the fact the girl seemed to be embracing TwenCen
"magical girl" tropes than by, well, the fact Maddie'd been attacked moments
ago by two Snow Leopards in search of a Black Opal. And that was saying
something.
The panther-furred Snow Leopard that the girl had blindsided looked to
be getting back up, so Maddie hit him with the taser charge in her extended
baton. Ahhh, she'd missed the sight of all that fur going up on end.
"Tetra-strike!" the girl shouted, and the Snow Leopard blocked the punch
fairly easily.
"Maybe don't telegraph your attacks," he snarled. "What you supposed to
be? The new Hellhound? Hellpuppy?"
"No, I'm the exemplar of justice, Tetra-Red!" she snapped back, dropping
and executing a leg sweep that made the Snow Leopard stumble slightly. "Your
dark mistress won't get away with this!"
"There IS no THIS!" Maddie shouted in frustration. "I don't know who
told you I had a black opal, but the only black opal I've ever heard of was a
TwenCen super...and HE went away with the rest of the supers! Besides,
aren't you guys a little far from your territory? You never know when a
Hangman is out for a stroll...!" she hoped the threat would convince them to
break it off. Tetra-Red was holding her own at this point, but her opponent
was clearly more experienced and was coming awfully close to getting in a
lethal cheap shot.
Apparently deciding that the night's easy assignment was rapidly going
into the sewers, the white Snow Leopard snarled incoherently, shoved
Tetra-Red to one side and dashed over to grab his partner before vanishing
into the night.
"Awww, we could've taken 'em," Tetra-Red complained. "I bet I can still
catch 'em...."
"No, you do not want to get mixed up in that. I wasn't kidding about
the Hangmen...the Onyx Eye might be quiet right now, but they have eyes and
they have blackcels," Maddie warned. "Do I know you? You certainly sounded
like you know me."
Tetra-Red looked around, squinting as if she could see into the darker
parts of the alley. "Not a good place for a talk. Hold on tight!" she
grabbed Maddie around the waist with one arm, and before Maddie could protest
the two were hurled into the air, landing a bit awkwardly on the roof.
"A little more warning would have been nice," Maddie wobbled a bit. She
may have been wearing sensible shoes, but that was not a great landing.
"Sorry about that...still pretty new at this."
"I could te...wait," the voice finally clicked, "Julie? Julie Li?"
Tetra-Red's eyes widened. "Um, I...damn."
"Unless you hit a growth spurt really late, you're a bit tall to be
Julie," Maddie sized up the girl. "The shadows do make it a little hard to
tell, though."
"Yeah, I was hoping that looking different would be enough to protect my
identity, but I guess it wasn't enough?" Julie sighed and literally started
to shrink, shedding a few centimeters in height as the shadows dissipated
like morning fog. Julie now stood in gymnastics tights and shoes that looked
too big for her feet.
"Okay, there's definitely a story here, if you're willing to tell it?"
Maddie arched an eyebrow.

* * * *

[March 19, 2027 - Chinatown]

So, it was just another Friday morning, a school day, nothing special.
Spring break coming up, but like, we don't actually get to go anywhere
because all the good places need a passport because we live in a fu...
freaking Khadamite outpost these days.
Now, my brother Jiaqi "Call me Jack" and he hates it when I call him
Chachi...he'd been missing for about a week at that point. Like, he doesn't
live with us anymore, but he usually stops by for dinner most nights because
he's a typical guy and can't cook. Or do his own laundry. Anyway. He
hadn't been around, and I could tell mom and dad were getting worried. I
thought maybe he'd just found some Joanie to mooch off, ya know? Who's
Joanie? And here I thought you were old enough to know the classics.
Right, getting to the point. There was this box on my dresser, black
with a dark red ribbon around it, and my name on a card in fancy calligraphy.
My Chinese name, which I don't even use because I'm tired of people saying it
wrong. The box hadn't been there when I went to bed, and my parents don't do
the random presents thing, so my brain nearly exploded right there! Stalker,
right? Last thing I needed was for one of those Onyx Eye ninjagoffs deciding
I'd make a great bride, you know? They might be quiet, but they're still
HERE.
Still, after I got my sh...self together, I realized that it was
probably safe to open. I mean, if whoever it was wanted to drug me or
something, they'd've done it while I was sleeping. Yeah yeah yeah,
afterwards I realized there were still a lot of reasons to not open it, but
it was morning and I wasn't thinking too straight anyway and I was still
kinda in shock so anyway I opened it.
No boom, no poof. Just this gem I've got here on my...oh, wait, lemme
make it visible so you can see it. I kinda reflexively make it invisible
when I turn off the powers, since it's kinda glaringly obvious on the back of
my hand, right? Tammy's is even worse that way...I'll get to Tammy, gimme a
minute.
There was also a USB dongle with "READ ME" written on it in English.
Whoever sent it knew I recognized my own name in Chinese but I'm not exactly
literate, grandma's nagging about it not making me read any better. At this
point I'm awake enough to know that sticking that in my computer is a
seriously stupid plan, so I hid the box in my sock drawer, stuck the dongle
in my backpack, and got ready for school like any other day.

* * * *

[March 19, 2027 - Manhattan Unified Secondary School #1, West Village]

You're pretty old, right? I mean, you must've gone to school before
they did the whole Unified School System, so you probably didn't go to
MUSS-1. Homeschooled or bussed to Jersey, right? Yeah, I agree, the old
P.S. system was much better, the new school names are stupid. Good ol'
Manhattan Unified Secondary School #1. Of two. Shiny and new, next door to
an equally new elementary school. We're the "magnet" school, I guess they
think we won't just KNOW they don't want to put as much effort into the
Harlem school, since all the people coming in from outside live down in the
Village. Tammy takes the bus down from Harlem since she's a total nerd and
the teachers up north can't handle her. Back home she's Tamica, but everyone
calls her Tammy here on the southside.
So, Tammy and I are pretty close. The whole social scene is still f...
messed up because MUSS has only been running for about a year and with the
student body including a few paragangers who ditched their colors no one
wants to get too close or piss off the wrong person, so we're all just kinda
rattling around in a school way too big for how many students there are. But
since Tammy and I are both born and raised Manhattanites, we kinda ended up
sticking together. Sure, we're from different ends of the island, but we've
got more in common with each other than the newbies who came for the gang
scene or whose parents got hired by Rexie to immigrate.
Also, she's a total nerd, did I say that? Yeah. I figured she might
know how to read that dongle without it unleashing a cyber-demon or
something. And get this, she got a box too! Same thing, but a dark blue
ribbon. So, we already were gonna work on a class project at her place
Saturday, we decided to work on the mystery of the boxes instead. Oh, don't
give me that look, we did the project too. That was easy, I just wanted an
excuse to get out of the house on a Saturday.

* * * *

[March 20, 2027 - Harlem]

Tammy'd picked up an ancient laptop, like from maybe ten years ago, at a
pawn shop. It worked, pretty much, and it was cheap enough that if we had to
toss it in a trash compactor to stop it from turning into a killer robot...
hey, there's still some Jollies around...no biggie. Out a few bucks.
The dongle had two things on it. A folder marked "Uncle Jess" and a
file marked "READ ME" like on the dongle itself. Who decided to call these
things "dongles" anyway? Sounds almost dirty.
So, Uncle Jess was Tammy's uncle, he got caught in the crossfire back in
January when some Snow Leopards were trying to muscle in on the Boys of Pain.
One of the Boys shot him, but everyone says the Leopards were why. The
folder had camera files the Boys said didn't exist, showing which Leopard did
it and how, plus their name, where they were usually found...whoever put this
together was a creeper on more than just high school girls, right?
Right, the READ ME. I might be misremembering some of it, but I've gone
over it plenty.
"Greetings, Tamica," and her last name, but I'll let her decide if she
wants you to know that and maybe I shouldn't have dropped her first name
either I am SO BAD AT THIS SECRET IDENTITY THING. Hhh. Ahem. "Consider me
a fellow believer in justice, who has sadly needed to retire from an active
role due to age and infirmity. Enclosed find a mystical gem, the Blue
Hexahedron, which once granted me power and I believe will grant you even
more. It will allow you to become a perfected version of yourself and while
I cannot say exactly what other powers it will give you, I believe you will
make me proud. There are others to whom I have gifted my gems of power, seek
them out or do not, it is your choice...but your common pursuit of justice
will likely bring your paths together. Seek a mentor among those who know
the city and its evils, whether you do it together or alone."
So, we copied the files, then plugged in my dongle. Same letter, just
addressed to me and calling the gem the Red Tetrahedron. So, like, I'm
Tetra-Red, and Tammy is Hexa-Blue, right? Might as well run with it when
we're handed a motif. My dongle also had a folder labeled Chachi, which
ratchets up the creepy factor just that extra little bit more.
Miss Chin, it's bad. My brother's joined the Snow Leopards. He's one
of Bathory's boy toys now...she is SO not Joanie. I was kinda worried I'd be
beating him up down there, you know? But he ended up a tabby, which would be
adorable if it weren't terrifying. Neither of those were tabbies. Bathory's
pets don't come back, do they? My letter also had an extra line at the end,
"If you can't save your brother, at least you can avenge him."


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Re: ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're Sleeping

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From: pwer...@gmail.com (Drew Nilium)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: Re: ASH: Shadow Girls #2 - He Sees You When You're Sleeping
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 01:23:21 -0000 (UTC)
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 by: Drew Nilium - Tue, 11 Jan 2022 01:23 UTC

On 12/11/21 10:13 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> [the cover shows a small matte black box tied in a dark red
> ribbon. "The Gift of POWER...or is it a CURSE?"

OMG X3 I love this theme

> Maddie watched as a slim girl dressed in skin-tight dark red shadows

Fascinating! :o

> The panther-furred Snow Leopard that the girl had blindsided looked to
> be getting back up, so Maddie hit him with the taser charge in her extended
> baton. Ahhh, she'd missed the sight of all that fur going up on end.

X3 <3

> "No, I'm the exemplar of justice, Tetra-Red!"

Oh, that's a good title

> Tetra-Red looked around, squinting as if she could see into the darker
> parts of the alley. "Not a good place for a talk. Hold on tight!" she
> grabbed Maddie around the waist with one arm, and before Maddie could protest
> the two were hurled into the air, landing a bit awkwardly on the roof.

Heeheehee

> "I could te...wait," the voice finally clicked, "Julie? Julie Li?"
> Tetra-Red's eyes widened. "Um, I...damn."

X3 Awwwww

> "Yeah, I was hoping that looking different would be enough to protect my
> identity, but I guess it wasn't enough?" Julie sighed and literally started
> to shrink, shedding a few centimeters in height as the shadows dissipated
> like morning fog. Julie now stood in gymnastics tights and shoes that looked
> too big for her feet.

Adorable!

> There was this box on my dresser, black
> with a dark red ribbon around it, and my name on a card in fancy calligraphy.
> My Chinese name, which I don't even use because I'm tired of people saying it
> wrong.

Extremely valid.

> Last thing I needed was for one of those Onyx Eye ninjagoffs

XD XD XD oh my god as a Pittsburgh resident I appreciate this so much

> No boom, no poof. Just this gem I've got here on my...oh, wait, lemme
> make it visible so you can see it. I kinda reflexively make it invisible
> when I turn off the powers, since it's kinda glaringly obvious on the back of
> my hand, right?

Ooooooh, nice nice.

> There was also a USB dongle with "READ ME" written on it in English.
> Whoever sent it knew I recognized my own name in Chinese but I'm not exactly
> literate, grandma's nagging about it not making me read any better.

Innnnnteresting. Fair.

> We're the "magnet" school, I guess they
> think we won't just KNOW they don't want to put as much effort into the
> Harlem school, since all the people coming in from outside live down in the
> Village.

Mmmmmmmm >:/

> So, Tammy and I are pretty close. The whole social scene is still f...
> messed up because MUSS has only been running for about a year and with the
> student body including a few paragangers who ditched their colors no one
> wants to get too close or piss off the wrong person, so we're all just kinda
> rattling around in a school way too big for how many students there are.

*Excellent* worldbuilding, and kind of familiar...

> Also, she's a total nerd, did I say that? Yeah. I figured she might
> know how to read that dongle without it unleashing a cyber-demon or
> something. And get this, she got a box too! Same thing, but a dark blue
> ribbon.

Oh fuck yeah. :D

> So, we already were gonna work on a class project at her place
> Saturday, we decided to work on the mystery of the boxes instead. Oh, don't
> give me that look, we did the project too. That was easy, I just wanted an
> excuse to get out of the house on a Saturday.

X3 I like her.

> Tammy'd picked up an ancient laptop, like from maybe ten years ago, at a
> pawn shop. It worked, pretty much, and it was cheap enough that if we had to
> toss it in a trash compactor to stop it from turning into a killer robot...
> hey, there's still some Jollies around...no biggie. Out a few bucks.

Nice nice nice. <3

> The dongle had two things on it. A folder marked "Uncle Jess" and a
> file marked "READ ME" like on the dongle itself. Who decided to call these
> things "dongles" anyway? Sounds almost dirty.

Definitely tech people with dirty minds.

> "Greetings, Tamica," and her last name, but I'll let her decide if she
> wants you to know that and maybe I shouldn't have dropped her first name
> either I am SO BAD AT THIS SECRET IDENTITY THING. Hhh. Ahem.

XD XD XD <3 <3 <3 I love it.

> "Consider me
> a fellow believer in justice, who has sadly needed to retire from an active
> role due to age and infirmity.

But Gramps was gettin' old
He couldn't keep up the fight

> Enclosed find a mystical gem, the Blue
> Hexahedron, which once granted me power and I believe will grant you even
> more. It will allow you to become a perfected version of yourself and while
> I cannot say exactly what other powers it will give you, I believe you will
> make me proud.

ooooooh. <3

> So, we copied the files, then plugged in my dongle. Same letter, just
> addressed to me and calling the gem the Red Tetrahedron. So, like, I'm
> Tetra-Red, and Tammy is Hexa-Blue, right?

Heck yeah. :D

> My dongle also had a folder labeled Chachi, which
> ratchets up the creepy factor just that extra little bit more.
> Miss Chin, it's bad. My brother's joined the Snow Leopards.
<snip>
> Bathory's
> pets don't come back, do they? My letter also had an extra line at the end,
> "If you can't save your brother, at least you can avenge him."

Aaaaaaaaa. ;.;

> apparently her powers were of the "not always on" variety, which was pretty
> unusual for paranormals, but maybe not for someone using a magic gem? Who
> the heck knew what the rules were for magical girls in the real world?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> Fortunately, she'd upgraded the building to biometrics, so she didn't
> need to have a key that might have been left behind because she wasn't
> PLANNING TO BE ON THE ROOF.

Well. X3

> Julie shrugged, a bit self-conscious. "Tammy and I discovered the hard
> way that when we draw on the power, we get...bigger. Not just stronger, but
> bigger in most ways.

Ooooo, makes sense.

> Anything close to the skin gets
> protected by the shadows, anything outside doesn't.

Ahhhh, Byrne Superman rules, got it.

> Maddie was wincing at the thought of giving herself a wedgie right
> before going into a fight. She had put a LOT of work into the Hellhound
> costumes to make sure that sort of thing never happened.

Heeheehee

> "Oh SHIT," Julie finally failed to self-censor. "You got a BOX. And
> it's bigger than mine."
> Sitting on the living room table was a black box tied with a dark gray
> ribbon, with a neatly-lettered card addressed to "M. Chin."

Awwwww shit. <3

> Maddie shook her head. "This is a deeper game than Bathory plays. I
> think the attack was a distraction for this, yes. But I think they were
> being played by someone else. The kitties wanted a Black Opal, and they
> clearly thought it was a literal opal.

Ohoho, nice

> Sliding the ribbon off, she opened the box. Inside was a sort of big
> pendant or something on a chain, and underneath it an envelope, but no
> obvious USB dongle.
> "Hey, it has sockets. A triangle, a square, another triangle..."

Ohoho, nice. :3 Loving this use of the tropes.

> "And I bet your Red Tetrahedron and the Blue Hexahedron would fit
> perfectly in the first two slots," Maddie replied. "Five sockets total, so I
> guess that means you and Tammy still have to find three more girls."
> "Just one more. Oh, I forgot, we met up with Octa-Green and Icosi-Pink
> about a week after we got our boxes."

Ah yes X3 <3

> If this doesn't seem like a lot of schools for Manhattan,
> keep in mind that not only is the current population in the 100K-200K range,
> it's also very old, and heavily concentrated at the north and south ends of
> the island, with the middle having been gang territory for several years. If
> anything, the city is overserved with schools at the moment, but Umbrae's
> education secretary is planning for the future.

Yep, yep~

> USB was in use before 1998, but "jumpdrive" and "USB Stick" were coined
> in the real world after 1998, so in the spirit of contingency things get
> named differently.

Oh makes sense.

> They don't show up as much (or at all) in ASH, because they use
> more secure and high-capacity storage systems. Under the hood, the memory
> on a USB dongle in 2027 is probably very little like a jumpdrive in 2021 real
> life, using a 3-D holographic crystal matrix of some sort, but the form
> factor hasn't changed a whole lot since the 90s.


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