Ghost Owl
But he wasn't alone. A kid in a hoodie that couldn't have been any older than sixteen was huddled up against a nearby wall, shivering not from the cold - he didn't even feel the cold, not now - but from the shock and horror of what he'd just seen. From the anger of allowing it to happen. His name was Jacob Stele and this was a Christmas he'd never forget. Chances are, you know how it goes: a good man dies, a bad man lives, a newborn vigilante, angry, screaming, is baptised in blood. Old tale, played out a thousand times over. But it has punch. It resonates. And you have to make allowances for the classics.
Nevertheless, this time around it seems somebody got bored with the same old script, demanded a last-minute twist thrown in. So a sharp-eyed observer - not that there any other witnesses that night, sharp-eyed or otherwise - would have noticed Jacob was clutching something, staring down at it with the sort of wide eyed disbelief typically reserved for first-time alien encounters. It was a .45 revolver, and it had five bullets chambered. A spent shell casing, still warm, lay in the snow not three feet away. No prizes for guessing where the rest would be found.
"It begins with a different man, a different time. I'm not the first. Maybe I won't be the last, either. But here, now, I'm the only Ghost Owl that matters."
An anonymous vigilante made his big debut on the Hudson crimefighting scene in the spring of 1962 - and he knew how to make an entrance. The police who later raided the dockside warehouse found a metric tonne of cocaine, a small army of thugs exhibiting an entire medical encyclopedia's worth of injuries - and one Marco Narcelli, notorious underboss of the Danovicci crime family. Narcelli had suffered the additional humiliation of being tarred and feathered then hung upside-down from the rafters. During an interview, he described his assailant as 'some psycho in an owl costume'. For the next few months, the papers, local news networks and street gossip were all abuzz with speculation, rumours and alleged sightings of the mysterious new crimefighter. He didn't stay anonymous for long.
"...man reportedly dressed as an owl foiled a bank robbery..."
"...no hostages were harmed..."
"...the would-be victim Fred Highfield, 46, described his rescuer as 'a ghost'..."
"...We don't care what 'good' he thinks he's doing. This Owlman, he gets caught breaking the law and he goes down..."
"...don't he realise Halloween ain't for another four months..."
"...HCPD commissioner issued a warrant for the masked vigilante's arrest..."
"...just another crook with an entitlement complex..."
"...a real hero..."
"...another sighting of Hudson's very own ghost owl..."
"...Ghost Owl..."
Ghost Owl. It was the papers that saddled him with the name. Maybe it wasn't what he'd have chosen for himself, but he never raised any objections. Not to the name and not to anything else - the see-sawing opinions of the press, the arrest warrants, the public denouncements and whispered praise; none of it seemingly mattered. He just continued his private war in silence and left everyone else to draw their own conclusions.
Maybe he sought a worthy successor, maybe he had a soft spot for strays or maybe he simply wanted someone to make the tea after a long day cracking skulls. But for whatever reason, the mid-eighties saw Ghost Owl break a lifelong habit and take a sidekick under his wing: a teenager who dubbed himself Kid Strigid. A bright boy, exceptionally gifted - smart, brave, loyal, tough; everything a veteran crimefighter could possibly seek in a protege. But the Kid was ultimately cast from a very different mold than his dour mentor - his outspoken views and optimistic (if naive) worldview made him the darling of the media, a veritable poster child for Hudson's cadre of vigilantes. To no-one's great surprise, he grew into a fine young man, a formidable street warrior in his own right - everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the aging Ghost Owl (he must've been, what, in his fifties by now?) would hand over his cape and utility belt to brighter, newer generation.
And then, entirely without warning, the Kid went stark raving mad and tried to murder his mentor. And very nearly succeeded.
The reason for Kid Strigid's treachery and descent into lunacy remains unclear to this day, although there is substantial evidence to suspect brainwashing and the involvement of Owl's long-term nemesis and criminal strategist-for-hire Checkmate. At the time, it was believed by all parties that Ghost Owl had perished in the ambush - he'd been riddled with bullets and left for dead and to add insult to the injury, his hideout was exposed and ransacked by every two-bit goon with a grudge. No shortage of those. Kid Strigid - who had since taken for himself the absurdly appropriate appellation King Cuckoo - took advantage of his former mentor's absence and set about putting everything he'd learned to good use, carving a niche for himself in Hudson's bloated underworld.
But Ghost Owl, miraculously rejuvenated, put an abrupt end to his former protege's deranged ambitions. After a bloody set of skirmishes, King Cuckoo found himself beaten to a pulp and unceremoniously locked away in a psychiatric ward. That was where he met his end at the hands of a grief-stricken nurse, hell-bent on revenge for the death of a lover caught in the crossfire. The fatal overdose was ruled 'suicide' and forgotten; nobody was fooled, but nobody gave a damn. Except for one man, of course - but they didn't bother to ask his opinion.
Ghost Owl's upgraded costume c. 1990.
Being shot multiple times changes one's
perspective on the need for armour.
Ghost Owl's last pre-millennial appearance occured in the winter of 1998, putting a prompt end to the nefarious activities of Joybuzzer, a harlequin-themed assassin with a penchant for electrocution. And then he simply vanished. Granted, he'd never been one for public appearances, but the Owl still found ways - dramatic, profound ways - to make his presence known, his ever-watchful gaze felt. And, to make matters worse, he'd disappeared at a time when he couldn't have been needed more - every major representative of his rogue's gallery was out in full force. Some said he'd retired (and who could blame him? Crazy guy must've been on the wrong side of sixty by now) but Ghost Owl didn't seem the retiring type; he was just too stubborn to quit, not without a replacement lined up to pick up the slack. And after the fiasco with Kid Strigid, there likely wasn't anyone else he could bring himself to trust. So general consensus was he'd snuffed it, bitten the bullet, tumbled from the nest. All the big newspapers agreed with this assessment.
2002. HCPD were baffled by a wave of new vigilantism. Always the same scene - they'd happen upon some scumbug beaten to a pulp with photographs stapeled to their forehead. Sometimes just the one, sometimes a dozen; didn't take a genius detective to work out the connection between the size of the makeshift photo album and the number of unnecessary broken bones. The pictures, whether newspaper cuttings and website printouts, were all of murder victims, the kind relegated to the back of the big book of unsolved cases to collect dust, thanks to lack of evidence, interest or clout. But here all the juicy details - all the sordid secrets and unsettling facts - were printed on the back. Big letters, too. Easy to read.
And the perps recited the same words over and over, like the chorus of a catchy new song: "It was the Ghost Owl. Ghost Owl's back." But was it the same Ghost Owl? Unlikely - at least according to the reports that came trickling through. It wasn't merely a change in M.O, either. He lacked, at least in the early days, his predecessor's finely-honed edge of experience and made up for it with brutality, improvisation and sheer bloody-minded determination. But in the end, it didn't matter if he wasn't the Ghost Owl. Whether successor of imitation, he was a Ghost Owl. And that was enough.
"Busy."
The new Ghost Owl doesn't confine himself to Hudson City. Most of his predecessor's rogues gallery have since migrated, so he opted to expand his sphere of influence. It's known that he maintains permanent safehouses in Millennium City, Hudson City and Vibora Bay, but evidence suggests he's made brief sojourns to locales as diverse and distant as Central America, Europe and East Asia. He comes and goes - typically without warning or explanation, though rumours suggest he's lately been attempting to establish a more permanent foothold in Millennium City through the formation of a network of likeminded, hard-hitting vigilantes - much in the vein of the now-defunct Moonlighters, of which he was a founding member.
"Every dirty secret, every little wrong you thought you'd buried for good. No matter how hard you try, how far you run - karma catches up in the end. And me? I'm the delivery man."
The original Ghost Owl had no metahuman powers to speak of, but the same cannot be said of his successor. Jacob Stele is a natural medium, harbouring an instinctive form of ESP that enables him to see, hear and speak with lingering spirits of the dead. By the same token, spirits are generally aware of this connection and are thusly drawn to him. Unfortunately, he lacks any form of telepathy and to other, less mystically-inclined individual tend to think he's talking to himself.
Spirits commonly have important unfinished business and/or strong emotions stemmed from the circumstances of their death. And as they can no longer finish that business or avenge their death, they're trapped, anchored to this world until someone comes along to remove that anchor; a problem solver. Someone like Ghost Owl, although all-too-frequently his method of problem solving entails venting the ghost's accumulated anger and sorrow by delivering a brutal beating unto their murderer. Cleansed of their rage, satisfied that justice has been dealt, the vengeful ghost usually (but not always) moves on.
Ghost Owl's ESP lends itself to more than mere communication. In addition, it confers:
- Spectral Carrying: Ghost Owl can invite spirits to occupy his body, depending on how tightly anchored they are to their haunting ground. Often, he requires to carry about his person an item they were particularly attached to in life - perhaps a piece of jewelry, an old photograph of a loved one, a keepsake, although in a pinch a tooth or fingerbone taken directly from the remains will suffice. Carrying places the spirit in a better position to offer guidance and information, and on occasion their minds may overlap, allowing Ghost Owl brief access to their thoughts and memories. But it's not without it's dangers. If the spirit's thoughts and feelings are particularly vehement, there's a good chance they'll influence Owl's emotional state - and that rarely ends well. Some spectres are capable of hopping aboard regardless of consent, and particularly malevolent entities may try to assume control of his mind and body.
- Memory Bleeding: Particular strong, prominent memories of spirits carried for an extended length of time may trickle through and lodge themselves in Owl's brain on a more permanent basis. This has proved beneficial on occasion, but all too often the memories are merely confounding abstractions devoid of any real background context. Having his head stuffed full of other people's baggage has also been more than a little detrimental to Ghost Owl's ailing mental health.
- Psychometry: Owl can sometimes sense psychic echoes of traumatic past events stemming from locations and physical objects. This power is something of a wildcard, imprecise and random. Exactly what he percieves tends to vary: phantoms that play out the same scene endlessly, a whispering voice that recites the same words over and over, a nauseatingly intense vision or, rarely, simple, instinctive knowledge. Through this ability, he might learn how a patch of blood came to stain the wall of a dingy alleyway, or that a knife he just picked up was once used as a murder weapon.
"It's brutal out there. Either you're good, or you're good as dead. No middle ground, no mediocrity. Excel or die."
- Peak Human Physical Conditioning: Through strict, rigorous excerise, a specialised diet and sheer, gritty determination, Ghost Owl has trained his body to the apex of human physical potential. He routinely displays strength, agility and endurance in line with - or perhaps even exceeding - world-class olympic athletes.
- Martial Arts Mastery: Intensive practice in conjunction with memory bleeding from the spirit of his predecessor have enabled Ghost Owl to become a very dangerous combatant in a very short space of time. In essence, the accumulated knowledge, experience and technique of a seventy year old grandmaster have been stuffed into the body of a man, less than half that age, at the peak of human physiology.
- Enhanced Eyesight: Due to special meditative techniques devised by the original Ghost Owl, his eyesight is borderline metahuman. Much like his namesake he can see in darkness without technological aid, pick out details from a distance, track (albeit with some difficulty) superfast movement and discern the minutiae of body language.
- Seasoned traceur and Acrobat: Freerunning is Ghost Owl's preferred means of transport while out on patrol.
- Skilled Detective: Ghost Owl is familiar with crime scene investigation, forensics and interrogation techniques both common and unorthodox along with a decent level of innate problem solving ability. He is not, however, a master detective in the truest sense - he has a tendency to rely on his ESP to hunt for answers.
- Adept Tactician: Ghost Owl has extensive theoretical and practical knowledge in the application of covert tactics and small-scale psychological warfare. Imaginative and analytical, he can both plan ahead and improvise with equal ability, swiftly adapting to sudden, unforseen changes circumstances.
- Scientific Expertise: Ghost Owl gleaned more than his fighting prowess from the memories of predecessor. Over the years he's learned how to manufacture and maintain his own tools and equipment. This knowledge is far from perfect - on occasion, he's been grudgingly forced to seek outside help. In addition, he's got a decent understanding of human biology and first aid - the brutal nature of his work often necessitates patching himself up after a particularly heavy night.
"The tools, the gadgets - they even the odds. When the Lord handed me my gifts, bulletproof skin wasn't part of the deal."
Costume History:
- Owlsuit mk1, 1962-1989: The original suit was nothing special - brown and grey tights, hardened leather bracers and boots, a buckled utility belt sporting large cloth pouches and a flowing scalloped cape attached to a face-concealing cowl. Said cowl featured a 'headdress' of sculpted feathers and a stylised mask fashioned to evoke the image of a horned owl. The sole protective feature of the costume was a lightweight kevlar flak vest concealed beneath the torso. The minimalist nature of the suit reflected the times - back in the sixties, metahumans were still something of a rarity (especially in Hudson) and supertechnology and military-grade ordanance was out of the hands of all but the most well-connected, wealthiest class of criminals. The gradual escalation of supervillainous threats through the late seventies and eighties rendered the costume something of a relic, and the stubborn refusal to upgrade to something sturdier ultimately almost cost Ghost Owl his life.
- Owlsuit mk2, 1990-2012: The second suit was created by Ghost Owl I in response to his near-death experience at the hands of his former sidekick. The design was dramatically overhauled, utilising cutting-edge (at the time) materials and techniques to accord the wearer maximum possible protection with no compromise to manueverability. The suit was also notable for the introduction of Ghost Owl's signature high-tech helmet, a sturdier utility belt and a removal of the cape. To compensate for Owl's advanced age, the owlsuit's interior was eventually lined with artficial muscle enhancements, boosting the wearer's strength and agility to borderline superhuman levels. His successor stripped these out - not only did they make the costume incredibly uncomfortable on his heavier frame, but letting the suit do all the work would only hamper his effectiveness as a crimefighter in the long run.
- Owlsuit mk3, 2013-????: The third owlsuit was created after the mk2 was ruined in a protacted battle with the forces of the notorious Macaw. As the first suit to be designed by the second Ghost Owl, it represents his evolution as a crimefighter - stepping out from the long shadow of his mentor. The bodysuit remains similar to the mk2, although Ghost Owl has seen fit to re-introduce the scalloped cape, overhaul the utility belt and incorporate heavy upper-body armour, gauntlets and boots. As a result the suit is much heavier, but given Jacob's greater physical prowess compared to his wiry, agile predecessor, the trade-off is negligable. The helmet's gone largely untouched save for more stylised circular lenses and a much-needed upgrade of all integral systems.
Owlsuit Tech Breakdown:
- Basic suit: The bodysuit is fashioned from kevlar bi-weave, carbon nanotube fibres and strategically placed ceramic plates all fitted over a flame-retardant, electrically insulated underlay, capable of shielding the wearer from the impact of small arms fire, blades, low-yield explosions and miscallaneous blunt trauma. Additionally, the suit is coated in a polymer that both minimises the wearer's heat signature and renders the fabric slippery, difficult to grasp. Save for a few concealed compartments, the chest protector has no special gimmicks or tech.
Helmet:
- Armouring: The helmet's 'feathers' conceal a kevlar-lined outer shell.
- Auditory Sensor: The helmet's 'feathers' are more than decoration. They're incredibly sensitive sound sensors, picking up even the most minute vibrations in the air and feeding them through the helmet's smart audio processor, which selectively amplifies or dampens. Repetitive background noise is kept at a neutral volume, excessively loud noises are muffled and changes (disturbances in the air, footsteps, speech etc) are emphasised. The sensor also features a directional mic that syncs up to the lenses' zoom function.
- Computer: Ghost Owl's headset computer is entirely hands-free, incorporating technology designed for disabled computer users: lip-reading recognition to respond to silent commands, a 'retinal mouse' that tracks eye movements and blink-operated shortcuts. The minimalist HUD is superimposed over the user's field of view. The computer itself is nothing special, roughly approximating the functionality of a tablet PC.
- Lenses: Owl's signature lenses can toggle between vision spectrums on the fly, zoom into the distance, record visual logs and be programmed (albeit with a fair amount of tinkering back at the base) to detect various energy traces and anomalies. The lenses also possess a protective polarising filter to shield the wearer's eyes from blinding lights. The charactistic glow exists only for intimidation factor and can be immediately dimmed when stealth is called for.
- Mask: The helmet is environmentally sealed and equipped with a gas mask-rebreather hybrid that protects against airborne agents. It can be connected to external oxygen tanks or food cartridges.
- Microphone: The microphone can amplify Ghost Owl's naturally quiet voice and distort it with an ominous crackle. It can also deliver an incapacitating sonic screech at the risk of permanent damage to the speakers. And people's ears.
- Supernatural: The helmet is the anchor for the spirit of the previous Ghost Owl, who occasionally sees fit to chip in with advice and (more frequently) criticism as if he were acting as mission control. His presence confers a certain degree of psionic shielding, and the helmet may respond to certain paranormal phenomena. Should anyone but Ghost Owl don the helm, chances are it won't react well.
Gloves:
- Armouring: Ghost Owl's gloves and bracers are plated with kendrium for both offensive and defensive purposes.
- Talons: Each bracer conceals a pair of kendrium talons, extended and retracted by tightly clenching the fist and sharply flicking the wrist downwards. These talons are attached to motorised reels of monofilament wire and a gas-powered propulsion mechanism can launch the claws a short distance to serve as emergency grappling hooks or supplementary ranged weapons.
- Shock: The monofilament wires are conductors. When the shock setting is activated, they carry an electrical charge to the talons, enabling them to deliver a variable-strength jolt upon contact.
- Heat: Thanks to a sophisticated heater system, the talons can be superheated for brief periods in order to dramatically enhance their cutting power. Even though the gauntlets are insulated, prolonged heating can be dangerous - running the risk of damaging the hardware, burning the flesh underneath and causing the talons themselves to melt.
- Compartments: The undersides of the bracers are outfitted with easily-accessible tubular compartments for Ghost Owl's array of pellet bombs.
Gadgets:
- Bolas: Weighted metal balls fixed together by thin steel wire that can be extended and shortened for ease of storage.
- Clawgun: This heavy-duty linegun is a staple of Ghost Owl's crimefighting arsenal and has seen constant use over the years. It resembles a small, lightweight pistol tipped with a four-finger robotic claw that predictably resembles an owl's talon. The claw automatically gauges the nature of the surface it's been fired at and reconfigures its shape accordingly - closing into a spike, stretching wide to form a grapnel or simply grasping at the edge of a ledge or railing. The device comes equipped with a directional microphone with a direct link to Ghost Owl's comm suite.
- Gas Pellets: Tiny spherical capsules that release a chemical agent when the outer shell is burst. They wreath the surrounding area in a dense, clinging smog. Not only does it obstruct vision, but it's also a disorienting hallucinogenic - an archetypical fear gas.
- Feather Blades: Compact, aerodynamic feather-shaped throwing knives, commonly stored in shoulder compartments for ease of access. Ghost Owl has been known to employ utility variants.
- First Aid Kit: A compact set of medical tools for quick and efficient field surgery.
- Forensics Kit: Evidence bags, fingerprint dusters and the like. The bare essentials for crime scene analysis.
- Plastique: Plastic explosive needs no explanation. The blasting caps Owl employs are tiny and detonated via remote signal from his helmet.
- Preypaint: A special translucent fluid that allows a target to be tracked over long distances. The fluid is primed by air exposure and after approximately a minute it broadcasts a signal back to Ghost Owl's helmet comp, which then assigns it a randomly-generated signature - ensuring that no two targets can be confused. As the fluid has the colour and consistency of water to the naked eye, it's difficult to see and wash out of fabrics or skin, although it's rendered ineffectual after a few hours - longer, if it can get into the target's bloodstream.
- Skeleton Key: Essentially a 'swiss army lockpick' - a compact handle with a fold-out selection of removable picks on one end. On the other is an electronic cracker that slots into computers and other electronic devices, be it through a USB port or otherwise; more or less a wireless 'plug' to create an entry point for the helmet computer's automated hacking software. Ghost Owl's not much of a hacker himself.
- Zipcuffs: Sturdier than regular cuffs.
Transportation:
- Owlwing Glider: The Owlwing is Owl's preferred means of long-distance conveyance and is most easily described as a VTOL hang-glider. The compact frame is composed of lightweight aluminium and fastens directly onto the user's back. It features an impressive pair of black feather-mesh wings equipped with miniature boosters that can fire powerful jets of compressed air in short bursts to increase acceleration and lift and allow for complex aerial manuevers. The frame can be quickly and easily folded into the size and approximate shape of a backpack for ease of storage and concealment.
- Ghostbike: So named for its eerily silent engines and advanced levitational propulsion system that enables it to hover three feet from the ground, this repulsorbike is a recent addition to Ghost Owl's arsenal. 'Confiscated' from the cyborg getaway driver Speed Demon, the ghostbike has been extensively refurbished to suit its new owner's tastes - although, truth be told, he has absolutely no idea how the core repulsor system actually functions. The ghostbike's armanent includes: twin front-mounted retractable light machineguns with interchangeable ammunition feeds (typically armour-piercing and rubber), rear-mounted caltrop hopper, twin lineguns, a netgun and a missile launcher.
Major WIP. Expansion + rewrites incoming!
