Post by lowlaville on Aug 28, 2022 17:15:51 GMT
His apartment is in the heart of New York City, the area where hundreds of high rising buildings are packed into blocks separated by alleys and smaller roads between them. Erwin looks out to a freeway that passes right along the outside of his living room window on the 6th floor of the building. As you’d expect, peace and tranquility doesn’t exist in the environment. There’s a lot of vibrations, cracked windows and walls. But, on the plus side, he is the master of his three-bedroom apartment.
In one of them, Erwin has boxes and boxes stacked up on top of each other, each of which is labelled, names on them are of his deceased wife and children. They were their belongings, from clothes, to toys, to tapes that had their moments captured on them, to things they loved to collect, cards, video games and books. When he feels lost and yearning, he would go into the room and just sit there and go through the boxes sometimes. This was his treasure. A reminder of what he must do in order to bring Justice to a system that has long since forgotten the virtue it was made to stand on.
And the other room, its walls were full of pictures, newspaper cutouts and ribbons tied with pins. Most were crossed out, implying they were no longer in the picture, but their connections, some bore question marks, targets whose identities he hadn’t yet been able to find. On a fresh patch of the wall there was a newspaper article of the incident in the Millenium City Park, featuring the faces of the heroes that rose to save the day, some of them, not all. He had managed to find the picture of the witch with a hole in her face and stuck it beside the article. A question mark besides the photo. ‘Not immortal. Can’t be killed the normal way’ The sticky notes next to her read.
The last of the three rooms is for Erwin to sleep in. He has a double bed in the corner of the room next to the window, not that it provides a great view because the room overlooks the alley between the two buildings and alternates between shaded and pitch black of the night. See, the only view that Erwin could see from there was the occasional light from the apartments across and his neighbors. Nothing more interesting than that usually.
You see, when he moved into the apartment two years ago, there used to be disturbances in the neighborhood, sounds of fighting and yelling, mostly coming from gangbangers, drug peddlers and the homeless. Since then, however, they have disappeared, and the neighborhood has become considerably safer to be in. No one knows what has happened to the lot that were the source of their disturbance for years and honestly no one asked.
In another corner of his room located was the walk-in wardrobe. And if you walked in, on the right-hand side was the sliding door that opened to display his suits he wore to ‘work’. There were three sets- one of whom had a crack going down the middle, courtesy of Erwin’s recent venture in Millenium City. On it he stuck a note saying, ‘Need to fix’, an assignment for some other day, because right now wasn’t the time to move or assignments. Given the number of ‘vigilante’ types like Lethe and Psi who were involved with him, he had no intention of pushing his luck at the risk of having been followed. He was just going to kick back and relax and not have to worry about the world for a while.
It begs the question, what did Erwin do for a living? How did he afford to be a vigilante amidst the rising inflation, the gas prices and the government taxes? What did he do? The answer to that was quite simple. He had managed to find a way to monetize his hobby. The underworld was both a target and his money maker. He’d take bounties for criminal organizations and/or criminals OR heroes and other government targets based on his own motif. He’d take payment from whoever was offering the bounty and go after them if the opportunity presented itself because of course underground communication channels were highly secure and the money transfers were often equally obscure. His ability helps but not always.
‘Justice’ is what Erwin liked to be called when he was working. His brand of justice may be cruel, but he was still its bringer in a world he saw as unjust. He had brewed a mug of coffee that Saturday morning, and kicked back and relaxed on his sofa and had turned on his TV. His favorite TV was always the news channels- not because he trusted them, but they did tell him where to focus his investigations on. While not a great source of Information. It was a premier source of headlines.
‘President signed the relief package’
‘USA on the brink of war’
‘Nuclear tests in the middle east’
The government overall spent a lot of the country’s budget on its military and its foreign policies that Erwin found to be laughable. He didn’t like that at all. If he thought assassinating a sitting president would change it, he would have but that was not how it worked. The president and his policies were the culmination of the system. Change had to happen from the ground up for it to have a change in its outlook at the highest level. Common men and women were responsible for who they elect and choose to let run the nation.
In one of them, Erwin has boxes and boxes stacked up on top of each other, each of which is labelled, names on them are of his deceased wife and children. They were their belongings, from clothes, to toys, to tapes that had their moments captured on them, to things they loved to collect, cards, video games and books. When he feels lost and yearning, he would go into the room and just sit there and go through the boxes sometimes. This was his treasure. A reminder of what he must do in order to bring Justice to a system that has long since forgotten the virtue it was made to stand on.
And the other room, its walls were full of pictures, newspaper cutouts and ribbons tied with pins. Most were crossed out, implying they were no longer in the picture, but their connections, some bore question marks, targets whose identities he hadn’t yet been able to find. On a fresh patch of the wall there was a newspaper article of the incident in the Millenium City Park, featuring the faces of the heroes that rose to save the day, some of them, not all. He had managed to find the picture of the witch with a hole in her face and stuck it beside the article. A question mark besides the photo. ‘Not immortal. Can’t be killed the normal way’ The sticky notes next to her read.
The last of the three rooms is for Erwin to sleep in. He has a double bed in the corner of the room next to the window, not that it provides a great view because the room overlooks the alley between the two buildings and alternates between shaded and pitch black of the night. See, the only view that Erwin could see from there was the occasional light from the apartments across and his neighbors. Nothing more interesting than that usually.
You see, when he moved into the apartment two years ago, there used to be disturbances in the neighborhood, sounds of fighting and yelling, mostly coming from gangbangers, drug peddlers and the homeless. Since then, however, they have disappeared, and the neighborhood has become considerably safer to be in. No one knows what has happened to the lot that were the source of their disturbance for years and honestly no one asked.
In another corner of his room located was the walk-in wardrobe. And if you walked in, on the right-hand side was the sliding door that opened to display his suits he wore to ‘work’. There were three sets- one of whom had a crack going down the middle, courtesy of Erwin’s recent venture in Millenium City. On it he stuck a note saying, ‘Need to fix’, an assignment for some other day, because right now wasn’t the time to move or assignments. Given the number of ‘vigilante’ types like Lethe and Psi who were involved with him, he had no intention of pushing his luck at the risk of having been followed. He was just going to kick back and relax and not have to worry about the world for a while.
It begs the question, what did Erwin do for a living? How did he afford to be a vigilante amidst the rising inflation, the gas prices and the government taxes? What did he do? The answer to that was quite simple. He had managed to find a way to monetize his hobby. The underworld was both a target and his money maker. He’d take bounties for criminal organizations and/or criminals OR heroes and other government targets based on his own motif. He’d take payment from whoever was offering the bounty and go after them if the opportunity presented itself because of course underground communication channels were highly secure and the money transfers were often equally obscure. His ability helps but not always.
‘Justice’ is what Erwin liked to be called when he was working. His brand of justice may be cruel, but he was still its bringer in a world he saw as unjust. He had brewed a mug of coffee that Saturday morning, and kicked back and relaxed on his sofa and had turned on his TV. His favorite TV was always the news channels- not because he trusted them, but they did tell him where to focus his investigations on. While not a great source of Information. It was a premier source of headlines.
‘President signed the relief package’
‘USA on the brink of war’
‘Nuclear tests in the middle east’
The government overall spent a lot of the country’s budget on its military and its foreign policies that Erwin found to be laughable. He didn’t like that at all. If he thought assassinating a sitting president would change it, he would have but that was not how it worked. The president and his policies were the culmination of the system. Change had to happen from the ground up for it to have a change in its outlook at the highest level. Common men and women were responsible for who they elect and choose to let run the nation.