the chase expends itself here, at the dead-end of an alleyway steeped in rainfall soured by oil, leaving Shadow to round the corner in a pathetic climax of spent energy arcing between his fingertips, as if it itself is lashing with impatience. he ignores the toilings of adrenaline inside of him, / summoning a practiced encraty that soothes the yearning, the clamor for barbarity in his chest. in fact, its very appetite makes him dysphoric, & that in of itself gives him pause, waiting for the heat in his blood to settle. "you shouldn't run," Shadow says with all the deadpan flourish of an adjudicator delivering a sentence. "it will just make you tired, & the end result will be the same."
... admittedly, he is curious. he wedges the toe of his shoe beneath the discarded board that made this capture so impossible, kicking it up into his hands in a rare indulgence of interest. it is deceptively lightweight when he turns it over (its exterior still belching smoke from Shadow's arrow), running his fingers over the ragtag seams with a surgeon's precision. homemade, but the hands that built this were skilled - highly skilled. valuable. he recalls the magnets that ferried precious freight across the ARK & the delicate mecca of reactive, microscopic circuits inside of his jet shoes, yet nothing compares to what he holds right now, which prompts him to think: what manner of technology is this ...? the introduction of yet another blindspot in his knowledge unnerves him.
no wonder they don't like you, @bashousen spits. & like striking a metal pole, / the insult reverberates until it spends itself like a bullet.
... so it would seem that the contagion of rumor had spread to this city as well, as he recalls no memory of ever being here before, nor seeing this person's face. the poison planted by Black Doom self-perpetuates, metastasizes as wayward glares & muttered curses, as if Shadow was a walking, eldritch malison dredged from oblivion, / damned to penance characterized by a kind of futility he could only call Sisyphean. his red gaze flits up sharply from the board in his hands, all manner of reaction occluded, remembering with sudden clarity the objective of this chase in the first place. the carious light of the alleyway slants against his shuttered expression, pinning the chased with a clinical, detached regard; his head swivels like a gun being aimed by its shooter. he's deliberating, or rather - (he's floating above it all suddenly, a diplopia of himself: the monstrous, distended sprawl of his own shadow, his fingers against the seam of this impossible technology, / the mountainous lodge in his throat & ... )
"who? you say that like it means anything," comes his glacial response, thinking not of the thousand invisible eyes turned toward him in renunciation but of a crude semblance of softness now fifty years forgotten. his mind at last slips back into itself with a heave, / but not without bleeding along the way. each day he thinks that tenderness becomes more & more indecipherable, / promises & lost radio transmissions - he has done nothing to you; he's just gotten in the way. thus, his resolve hardened again, Shadow closes the gap between himself & his objective with a deceptively easy stride, certain that if the thief managed a miraculous escape, his own perseverance would outlast even him, / who has proven himself to be remarkably slippery. after all, nothing escapes him for long, not when he wills its seizure. at last Shadow hovers over him, rainwater limning the sharpness of his whetted bones, angles cocked forward like a firearm. he pries open the thief's hand, finger by finger, until the prize is his; really, he finds Earthlingsβ obsession with having so ridiculously superfluous, & he's certain his disgust shows. he supposes it's pretty for a moment, the golds & the jewels, its artistry resisting the corruption of Metal City's rancid sleaze. that's all pleasure ever is for him, though: / ephemeral, a lit match sputtering against his otherwise inert anhedonia. after his failure to catch flame, Shadow's shoe presses against the thief's chest & pushes him back onto the ground (using no more force than necessary), silently hoping he understands that resistance is purposeless. he pockets the necklace carelessly, idly wondering if Rouge will bemoan the deplorable state it's in - scuffed by his indelicate touch & caked in a fine layer of what he can only assume is sweat. there is never pleasing the insatiable, he thinks.
"... green is such a vile color."
