Rainbow Resonance!

Rainbow Resonance - Case File: Caspion

The sun glides through the sky at 11:00 AM on a Saturday. The hustle and bustle of Keh'shette, Florida springs to life as many city-goers relax in the warm, humid air the state brings. The many stalls and markets are open to offer their local wares to tourist and townie alike. The best part? One is about to be quite elated! It's our dear friend, Caspion! There's nary a noontime that the bat boy comes through to visit and take in the delights!

Caspion often floats by a variety of the stalls, with many of the owners being absolutely delighted by his presence. Today, he stopped by a Cuban Bakery stand serving up some of the warmest delicacies this side of the tropical coast. Caspion is ogling at the guava and cheese delight that captured his eye, the light pink jelly bouncing beautifully off of the sun. As he goes to pay for the morsel, the owner shakes his hand in protest. 

Bakery Salesman: "No...no...you are a nice kid! Please, enjoy!"

Caspion becomes even more astounded, as the generosity of the people of the market never fails to make him grin from ear to ear. He waves goodbye and soon pockets the pastry inside his mouth, gripping onto it as he tries not to let it fall. He then soon dashes up a nearby building within an alley with astounding dexterity, and finds himself a comfortable spot to sit on top of the building to enjoy the city. It's his day off, and he wants to take it in without all the chaotic noise at the ground level. 

As Caspion is resting himself on a rooftop parapet to partake in his pastry, he notices something in the alley right below him. As he focuses his eyes, he watches a small child pulled through a tight alley, his wrist cuffed in the hand of a grown man. The child's eyes are cast in utter horror & exhaustion, as the man's face shows how much time he does not want to waste, and how little disregard he has for the person at hand. He then follows the path to a parked, unmarked van just around the corner, with the door slightly open ajar. A dangerous thought tightens in his stomach, as he thinks to himself...

"Wait, is he getting..."

Coming to the horrid realization, he pockets the pastry and stands up with firm resolve on said parapet. Extending his wings, he flaps them with urgency as his body dashes in between the pair. Right as the pair were about to abscond, the man comes face to face with Caspion. His quizzical gaze meets Caspion's stone visage. He looks utterly appalled at this interruption. Caspion is standing in front of the child like a guardian angel, defiant and protective. With a stern demeanor, he questions the man.

"His eyes. Are they a light or dark brown?"

The man tries to take a peek at his victim, only for Caspion to gently move to the side, blocking his view. As his fingers begin to fidget and his face becoming more frustrated, he spits out an answer to appease the random passerby.

"They're dark. Now look, I dunnow who you think you a-" 

Caspion quickly retorts with a "Are you absolutely sure that the child's eyes are dark brown?" remaining composed yet sharp the entire time.

With an increasingly annoyed tone, the man goes "Yes?! I've known this child all of my life! How could I not know that??! Now get the hell out of the way before I call the cops you freak." 

Caspion then looks back one last time, before he adjusts himself just enough for the man to see the child's eyes once again. What looks back at him are two absolutely afraid green eyes. As the man realizes how wrong he got, he tries to turn back to Caspion to explain himself, only to meet two more eyes that lack any sort of patience.

They are combined with with a stern face that only reads as absolute disgust. Before he can even utter a word, the man gets caught unawares by a shadow hand grabbing him from behind, and pinning him face first towards a nearby wall. As the man begins to struggle out of his binds, Caspion kneels down and meets the child at eye level, putting back on a friendly face. 

"Hey, little buddy." He softly says to the child. "Do you mind telling me where your parents are?"

As the disheveled child begins to point to the other side of the alley, the parents of said child begin running down towards the pair, and start screaming their name.

"SAAAAM!!! SAAAAAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!" the parents are yelling with all of their heart, bolting toward the child. As they close in to reunite with their kid, Caspion looks on with a warm smile that the situation did not become even worse. The parents begin hugging Sam with extreme love & affection as they both start weeping, with one giving them a flurry of forehead kisses, and another sobbing as they go "I'm SORRY!!!" over and over. As Caspion begins looking on in resolution, he hears the start of a car engine begin to rev up. He then quickly turns around to watch a van bolt out of the alley way like they had somewhere to be. As it dashes off, the apprehended individual begins to chuckle. 

"HA! You think that was all we did today?" The kidnapper soon boasts to  Caspion. He looks on in response with the same stern look he had before, but with the kidnapper not taking any of it seriously.

"Trust me, kid. If you think what we had was all there was, you have another thing co-" THWACK went a shadow fist at his head, knocking the foe out. Caspion then spots some nearby spare rope to apprehend the kidnapper, and leaves him upright on the side of the road. As he is about to tail the remaining car, he hears an earnest, yet familiar voice sign him off.

"Th...thank you." Sam squeaks out, with both of their parents nodding in agreement, too emotionally distraught to respond properly. Caspion looks back with the same warm smile, and like a beam of joy, he responds back with "Anytime!", before darting off. 

Through extending his wings, he picks up a massive gust of air that lifts his body high above the buildings. After scanning the roads, he soon spots the van that made the getaway, and proceeds to slowly glide his body towards it, making sure that the van doesn't pick up that it's being tailed. After some time has passed, the van finally parks in front of an abandoned building. Peering over from a rooftop, Caspion watches as he views the driver get out and pull out two children from the back, both looking asleep. As the driver hustles everyone into the building, Caspion soon descends onto the ground, using his wings to ensure that he lands softly to not alert anyone. Or at least, not yet. Caspion's steps become quite deliberate, yet soft, as he makes his way to the rusty double doors that the driver absconded with his victims through. Caspion then uses his palms to slam open the doors, nearly taking them off the hinges in the process. 

Inside the building is a derelict operation. An abandoned storage facility in utter disarray, with the dank late afternoon sunlight giving the entire place a horrid orange hue. As Caspion lets himself in, one by one the men within notice his arrival, and start to get organized. Caspion soon notices a large row of cages extending from the back of the room towards the middle. A dozen in total. They look like they were made decades ago, with some kind of powder around the bottom floor and rust almost overtaking the whole thing. Inside them are blankets that almost look like stitched tissue paper, some snack wrappers with flies eating the remains of what's inside them, and something...no...someone in the corner.

It's a child. They're all children in there.

Caspion notices how they all appear to be unconscious. He uses his ears to pick up on their heartbeats, and listens in closely. As he does, he hears the soft breathing of their lungs and thump of life getting oxygen from them. They are all merely sleeping. Even with the relative safety of the children confirmed, something inside Caspion stirs with powerful intent. While this is a horrific sight to view in of itself, something specific about the situation calls forth something deep within him, and he begins to find that emotion turn into righteous anger. He can feel his teeth grip tighter onto himself as he does so.

The sheepishly dressed goons within the facility begin encircling him, all brandishing a crude weapon of some kind. One is standing towards the back of the room, right in front of a messy paper ridden desk. His nonchalant nature becomes apparent as he strolls towards the situation about to break out. His jeans & dress shirt under a blazer highlight just how much he has benefited from this whole operation, with his goons in ragged tatters emphasizing just how casual it has all become to them. The leader soon begins to orate.

???: "Good afternoon, my furred friend. You can call me Neil. Or ringleader. Or whatever I couldn't care less. What I DO care about though, is you discovering our little...."

He gestures towards his efforts. The children.

Neil: Operation.

The goons begin to slowly walk towards Caspion. His firm stance and cold demeanor does not change. Right now, all he can focus on is dealing with this situation as fast as possible and giving all of these reprehensible men the justice they deserve.

Neil: "Now listen, I understand that this may seem a bit....adverse to you. But please take the due diligence in what the real problem is. You not minding your business. So now, I have to transfer all of these things to a different facility, and who knows how horrendous the journey will be. I mean, it won't matter to me cause I'll get my reward anyhow. But all of this? It's all your fault. Hope you remember that when they find you buried two towns over."

Caspion's hands grip with utter conviction into fists, and is quite over hearing such....wonderful prose. Before the battle begins, Caspion offers a response that is reserved, yet sharp, like a needle filled with anesthetic. 

Caspion: "All I wanted today, was to enjoy the morning sun, and eat a fresh pastry. All I wanted to be, was happy. Unfortunately, my reward for that was to act upon my good nature to ensure that a child wasn't met with harm. And now I see that my reward for that was to look upon even more children in disarray, and to hear you speak. And the fact that you are trying to offload your guilt onto me, like a bad painting, is absolutely vile. You want me to own up to my mistake? I will, because I know I can take it. You wanted your reward? So here I am."

The first goon lunges forward with a metal pipe as Caspion's hand begins to glow red. Caspion then twists his body to grip the goon by the shirt and throw him towards another, knocking both out.

Caspion, with utter conviction and defiance: "Doing everything I can."

As Neil throws something towards Caspion to get him to shut up, another goon comes in with a chain to strike down Caspion, and Caspion uses his other hand to grab him as well to block the shot. Whatever Neil threw had some kind of powder in it, as it all falls around Caspion. He spins the goon in his hand around to knock out two more foes.

Caspion, beginning to raise his voice: "HOLDING ON TO WHAT I AM."

The last four goons try to all jump him at once, but Caspion soon then high jumps into the air. The crackling red energy from his legs and feet leave behind a small impact mark on the ground as the goons run into each other, stunning themselves. As Caspion descends, he uses a shadow hand to bind everyone together and throw the bundle towards Neil. Neil then dodges out of the way before the bundle demolishes the desk behind him. The goons scatter onto the ground and flop as they also are incapacitated.

Caspion begins to finalize his mantra as he starts revving up for a final attack on Neil to subdue him. As he does so, he begins to speak in an odd manner: "PRETENDING I'M A......