a little crime never hurt (open)

As far as crime went he knew that he had seen worse but there would always be something about graveyards that made him feel the creeps. "What are you doing out here?" he asked. He did not suppose he should be shocked and still he was. "Anything good to take?"

Jenna McRaye

The cemetery on Ashford Isle had originally been mostly for show, and full of fake tombstones and empty graves. After the STRIFE business and Doctor Möbius' assault on the island, however, there were a lot of corpses that needed a place to go. Corpses that had been buried with whatever odds, ends, and valuables were on them. Jenna was not the only one who had come up with the brilliant idea of robbing the graves while the dirt covering them was still loose. A man of shadow and mystery had a similar idea, and he'd brought a shovel...

Joe Dante grumbled as he put his shovel in the dirt and pushed. He wished that his powers gave him reliable super-strength or something. Sure, if he grew to the size of a giant monster, he'd have some sort of proportional force, but size-changing was mostly for show. He didn't get the ability to move mountains just by getting bigger, and his body was never quite solid enough to move a load of dirt or something physical and dead on its own. Unless he wanted to swallow it... and that was a little distasteful and difficult for him. So, it was taking the form of a man and scooping up dirt with a pilfered shovel from a tool shed for Joe. Until he heard some people gathering on the edge of the graveyard, chattering to themselves.

Joe didn't want any guests, especially the unexpected kind. So he slid into the dark shadows of the moonlit night, and made his way over to the entrance, where a trio of strangers were hanging out. He waited, listened...

Then, the Shadow Man, rose up from behind a tombstone, shifting and growing until he looked like the shadow of a skinny giant, with gnarled fingers that ended in claws and what appeared to be the outline of a far-too-wide grin with piano-key teeth. Joe loomed over the gangsters in this form for a moment, then spoke a single word through that smile.

"...Boo."

Jenna McRaye Kris Lerax Rhett Monroe

He was nothing but a human and most the time he did feel safe on the island but when he heard the scream this was simply far from one of those times. He did not know if he could run and it be okay so he chose to stay and he spoke. "H..h..how can we help you?" he asked through his stutters.

Rhett Monroe
shadowman
Jenna McRaye

Once, when he was young, Joe had felt heartbroken whenever he caused people to scream at the sight of his face, or what passed for his face. But it was long past the point where sadness had turned to a sick glee at getting to mess with people, to make their hearts beat up into their throats and out their chests and force the screams of scared children from full-grown men and women. He was the Boogeyman, but one that did not stop and who could not be held... so long as nobody knew his major weakness, of course. These people, the trio of would-be criminals in front of him, didn't. Killing them would be so very easy. But, then again, Joe knew that if he killed them, he would have to hide the bodies. And still dig up the graves he was hoping to rob on top of it. Hadn't he just been bemoaning having to do all the hard work himself?

"Good questions, what could hurt someone around here?"

The tombstone teeth of Joe's "mouth" shifted into sharp snaggletooth fangs as he grinned.

"And what could you do to help me?"

He laughed, then shifted and reshaped himself. No longer was he a leaning, and lean, giant. Now, he flowed like water and slithered like a snake until coils of shadow were surrounding the trio in front of him. The coils were probably extra terrifying to Jenna, as her X-ray vision would have been absolutely confused by the stuff. No bones, no hard objects... and it probably seemed to lead somewhere that wasn't the graveyard. Somewhere filled with floating bones and boxes and other random objects that were hard enough for her X-ray eyes to pick up.

"I guess I could answer both. See, I can hurt ya all real, real bad. And I kinda want to do it. But, if you help me dig up the fresh graves with the fresh bodies and lotsa jewels and nice clothes..."

A trio of arms extended from Joe's body, shifting shadowy arms that stretched and bent in ways no arm should. Each held a shovel in a single hand, which Joe had stolen at various points before he came to the island. One was old and rusty, another looked like it just came out of the hardware store, and the third was smaller than the other two...

"And you give me all the loot, I'll let ya go with yer lives. How's that sound? Real generous offer from the Shadow Man, not a lotta people get it..."

Rhett Monroe Jenna McRaye Kris Lerax

He darted his eyes a second and then he shrugged. At the end of the day they were a gang and he had no qualms about this. "Make him promise that he will not harm us. I do not believe that he will not find a way to dispose of us once he has what he needs."

He might have been a human which was looked at as a lower here or so he felt but he was not going to be apart of a deal and receive nothing in return. A fool he did not feel like playing today.

Rhett Monroe
shadowman
Jenna McRaye

While Joe might have seemed like a terrifying monster... he was, at heart, a lazy bastard who did what he had to do and no more. So, while it would have been possible for him to slice up Kris for speaking up and making demands... that would have left him down a pair of hands. So, instead, Joe slithered and shaped himself until he was face-to-face with the only un-powered being in the graveyard. For a brief moment, Joe made his face featureless again, leaving a sort of texture or shape that implied a nose and a mouth and ears... but with no eyes or openings. Then, the whole head split open to reveal a big, gaping mouth that seemed to lead to an even darker place. A mouth filled with black, sharp teeth.

"HAHA! Lookit the pair on this guy, huh? No gun, no useful powers I'll bet, and barely any muscle... And he's still trying to bluff his way to a better deal! You made me laugh, so I won't cut you open and slurp up your intestines like my ma's spaghette."

Two arms slid out from somewhere to make gestures, while a third, far-too-long arm wrapped around Kris.

"Tell ya what, big guy. You made me laugh... So I'll let ya off with a warnin'."

All three of the arms that Joe had grown poked at Kris' chest.

"Just. This. Once."

Suddenly, the coils of shadow slithered and shook and moved away... Until Joe, or the Shadow Man, was a humanoid figure standing in front of them. He was about the size of a regular person for a moment... then he was a monstrous, gigantic demon of darkness with claws, teeth, horns, and openings that acted as "eyes" to squint and glare.

"Now get diggin'..."

Joe shrank back to his humanoid shape. This time, he also grew a long coat, and formed his legs to look like shoes and pants. From his head sprouted a fedora hat, which he tipped down to cover his non-existent face.

"I'll be watchin' from the dark. Any of you try to run... I'll eat ya up."

And with that, he slid into the shadow cast by a tree in the moonlight. A perfect place to watch the trio move around... but also it was unlikely that they could shine a bright light that would totally get rid of the tree's shadow. Yup, this would be the perfect plan. Or so Joe thought.

Jenna McRaye Kris Lerax Rhett Monroe

He was being serious as he looked at them. "Guys our lives were just threatened please take this a little more seriously." Hell he now knew that he was the only one that felt like he might actually lose himself if something like this happened. As a matter of fact Jenna might be the only one who could survive as he began to reluctantly dig and looked at Jenna. "What happened to playing the graves because no one could hurt you?"

What a crock of bullshit he now knew as he took a second and hit something hard as he pulled it up. A rotting bone, no doubt once upon a time belonging to a body as he screamed and threw the bone down.

Rhett Monroe
shadowman
Jenna McRaye