Charise Carnes // Knightfall

[Knightfall]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=valign, top][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=style, border: 10px solid #f1e3b4; width: 450px; background-color: #f6f7f1;] PERSONAL FILE HIGHLY CLASSIFIED AND CONFIDENTIAL GENERAL INFORMATION NAME: Charise Carnes ALIAS: Knightfall, the Butcher Brat, the Spoiled Slaughterer GENDER: Female AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: ‘Princess’, Heiress and Vigilante ALIGNMENT: Evil (Not that she believes it) AFFILIATION(S): Herself, the Disgraced PHYSICAL PROFILE HEIGHT: 5’7” WEIGHT: 125 lbs EYES: Aquamarine HAIR: Dark Blonde CLASSIFICATION: Human UNUSUAL FEATURES: Charise has a smattering of freckles underneath her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. BEHAVIOR PROFILE Charise Carnes used to be a daddy’s girl through and through. All she wanted was to have her father’s approval and the only thing that mattered to her was that he was proud of her. She knew that he was not a nice man. She knew that he had built his world in ways that he could never admit to using. Still, he was her father, she was his princess and that was all that mattered. Even today, when Charise talks about him, the love in her voice is clear and tangible. True, she loved her mother and her brother too, but the most important figure in her life was her father. His approval was everything and she spent all of her time either trying to prove herself to him or thinking of new ways to win his approval. The lack of evidence notwithstanding, the officers of the GCPD found it hard to believe a girl who was so polite and cooperative despite her obvious fear had committed the crime of which she was accused. That, of course, was then although Charise had already had the revelation that changed her life. Today, then, Charise Carnes is an ideologue. She is a prophet, the chosen harbinger of Gotham’s future and heir to its throne. She is the woman who will rule the new city. In that sense, she is idealistic. That is not true in the traditional sense, admittedly, because the last thing that can be said of Charise is that she is naïve. She has no illusions left at all. But she has a vision and she is not shy about that. True, there is a limit to what she can say in public for now but Charise utterly believes in the rightness of her cause. She is a hero and the fact that so many oppose her simply proves that they are beyond saving. She is also an intellectual, a planner though she is perfectly capable of doing her own dirty work, someone who thinks ahead and does not rush into confrontations. Further, she is dedicated and never gives up once she has set her mind to something. No matter how hard or how many times she falls, she will pick herself up, dust herself down and try again and again. What makes her dangerous though is that she is as charismatic as she is intelligent. Charise is loyal to those who are loyal to her and she is very careful in how she recruits her inner circle. On the other hand, she has already begun to gather a movement in her civilian guise and her youth, magnetism and clear passion draw the other young people of Gotham to her despite her wealth. Both as Charise and Knightfall, she is inspiring, able to push people to give their best for her and able to use her own clear passion for the cause of bettering Gotham to make others feel the same. The same is true of those close to her, those who she regards as a surrogate family. They mean everything to her and hurting them is an excellent way to draw her wrath. And even to her enemies, she can be surprisingly charming while she always keeps her word. Interestingly, Charise is almost always polite. She is considerate by nature to those who she feels deserves it, to the point that she will offer to inform loved ones of a death if she respects her victim enough. Naturally, this does not apply to scum, criminals and such. They do not deserve it. Still, there is a natural formality to Charise. She never swears, rarely uses diminutive forms of names, calls people by their surname and title until they are properly acquainted and has an interesting sense of noblesse oblige – the need to give something back to the community. She has always been this way and her traumatic experience did not change it. But she is every inch the princess she thinks of herself as – formal, dignified and regal. Very few things can crack her shell. One is the notion that she was in any way responsible for the slaughter of her family. Charise finds that deeply hurtful and can be visibly shaken to have it suggested that she somehow ‘escaped justice’. The other is the idea that Trevor, the former boyfriend who slaughtered her family, deserves release. And here we come to the crux of the matter. Is Charise Carnes insane? She is, though not in the sense that she is a cackling madwoman. In fact, in some ways, she is utterly sane. It is perhaps better to say that she is broken or that she is disconnected, perhaps even resigned in some ways. She has been hurt in ways that no one should ever be, made to sit and watch for three hours as her family was skinned alive. So perhaps it is understandable. So, what is it that Charise wants? Clichéd as it may sound, Charise has a vision. It is a vision that resonates strongly with many people, which is part of why it is so powerful and compelling. It is a vision that even the Batfamily would find it hard to disagree with – it is after all the same vision that many of them long to become real. Charise Carnes dreams of a golden city, of a Gotham free from crime and criminals – from the Joker but also from the brutality of the gangs and the drug trade, from all crime. A perfect, golden city, where no one ever has to suffer the same tragedy that she did ever again, that is the vision that she seeks. And then, when Gotham is clean and new, then she would expand her vision to other cities, then other countries – but Gotham is her home and a powerful symbol. Gotham will be remade. So far, so good. And, again, there would be few who disagreed with what Charise wants – what sane and normal member of society would want there to be crime in their world? Even if they did not sympathise with Charise herself, who would argue with her expressed goal? Her methods however… Well. Her methods are where the problems may lie. Charise believes in a policy that is light years beyond mere ‘zero tolerance’. No crime is to be tolerated and all are to be punished in the same way: death. That is how she thinks that she will destroy Gotham’s crime. It is quite simple, really, brutally so even. Kill everyone who breaks the law, no matter how insignificantly or for what reason. All criminals die and they die badly. Crippled, tortured, battered and broken, their bodies are left for their fellows to find. Charise Carnes will drown Gotham’s criminals in their own blood, cleansing the city in an ocean of it. There will be no prisons in Knightfall’s Utopia, no Arkham, because there will be no need for them. Anyone who breaks the law will die and they will become an example to all others. Knightfall will be judge, jury and executioner. Charise Carnes will be Gotham’s ruling princess. And eventually there will be no more crime, no more innocent families slaughtered in front of their children for non-existent crimes. There will be no more little girls left in a pool of their parents’ blood. It is certainly an ambitious plan. Charise is an ambitious woman. She knows that she has vast resources available to her – money, followers, her natural gifts, a growing web of contacts and information. To settle for less would be less than her parents deserve. Charise is dedicated to this vision, to the point that the two aspects of her plan consume her every waking moment. She is implacable and pitiless, a terrible enemy for the criminals of Gotham because she is willing to pour everything that she has into her quest. And she would be an equally terrible enemy for anyone who stands in her way. This includes the Batman and his ilk, men and women who Charise views as responsible for the plague of crime that floods Gotham and chokes the city. They will have two choices – join her or die. She would prefer that they chose the former, but she will shed no tears if not. She is the future and there is no way that she will apologise for seeing what they are too stupid to fathom. Her way will work. Theirs has already failed. Something else to bear in mind though is that, for all her politeness, for all her noblesse oblige, for all her intelligence, Charise is a cruel, sadistic, vengeful woman. She has taken her anger at the man who took her family from her and used one terrible crime to justify torturing and brutally killing children younger than her for crimes that barely warrant a prison sentence. And she will do this, absolutely convinced of her actions’ correctness. This is a young woman who willingly accepted an Arkham sentence, a young woman who learnt every dirty trick her father knew at his knee, who learnt the craft of madness from every killer and every sadist in Arkham. Finally, Charise is supremely confident. Not that she is going to win every battle, but that she has already won the war. She owns so much of Gotham that she believes that no one can beat her. And she is proud of that and of her actions. As such, she reacts violently to being helpless even for a second and she loathes the very idea that anyone could think that she can be beaten. DOCUMENTED HISTORY Charise Carnes was never an ordinary girl. The girl they called Gotham’s princess from her birth never had that chance. But then the daughter of Virginia and William Carnes, the last real estate baron of Gotham, never wanted to be ordinary either. No, she was practically royalty already and how could it have ever been any different when her father was Gotham’s kingmaker. From a young age, Charise was aware that her father did many bad things. But she did not care. All she ever wanted was for him to be proud of her. That urge remained as she grew from childhood to be a teenager, pushing her to throw herself into learning every lesson she could from him, pushing her to learn martial arts and to excel at every lesson at school simply to gain one smile. Not that William Carnes had much time for his daughter. The Carnes family was always divisive, hated by many locals for what was seen as their dirty practices. Still, he never claimed he was otherwise and Charise loved him anyway. Her youth, then, was unremarkable, marked only by the birth of a younger brother – Emil – when she was ten. When Charise was sixteen, she met her first and only boyfriend. His name was Trevor: he was two years older than her, far more worldly than she and exactly what she needed. Quite apart from Charise finding his interest in her flattering, he was also the first boy she’d ever met who just didn’t care about her being rich. Before, all the boys who’d shown interest had been greedy, had wanted her to buy them things or take them to places instead of the other way around. Or they let it intimidate them – if she was a billionaire’s daughter, they clearly would not be interested in her. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps not. But, either way, Trevor was her first boyfriend and all he ever had to say was that her money would bring her nothing but unhappiness. Did she love him? Charise wasn’t sure. But she was certainly growing to care about him by that fateful day. Before that, they had spent almost a month together, doing normal things and Charise could pretend that she was just another girl, out enjoying her life. It seemed like it would never end. So, of course, it did. One night, Trevor came to her house. He was her boyfriend – of course she let him in. She smiled, in fact, delighted to see him unexpectedly. He wasn’t quite a regular guest, but he had been there before. Charise kissed him and hugged him and took him into the living room. And that is when he pulled out the knives. It shouldn’t have mattered. Charise was already a black belt, after all, well trained in the theory of how to defend herself from attack. But he was bigger and stronger and, more importantly, she was afraid. With a knife to her throat, Trevor made her call her family downstairs. And then she was made to tie them up with a roll of duct tape that he had brought with him. And then he butchered them while she watched, unable to move or even speak as he peeled the skin off their bodies. It took three whole hours while Charise watched, sitting terrified in a growing pool of her family’s blood. Three hours. And, when he was done, Trevor told her why he had done it. Why he had come there that night to kill her family – except her. He did it for the lulz. That was it. He killed her mother and her father and her little brother for the laughs. Then he left. Charise stayed exactly where she was. She couldn’t even think of moving despite the fact that she was sat in the clotting blood of her loved ones. And that was how the police found her hours later. Still sat there, covered in blood, shivering. But by then she had had a revelation. True, she could tell them all about Trevor. She could tell them the truth, possibly have herself exonerated but then what? Trevor would get away with nothing more than a prison sentence, more likely a trip to Arkham. That was all. And how could something like that ever begin to teach him what he had done? It could not. It would not. And so she would have to see to that herself. But, if she was going to fight a madman, she needed to know her enemy. As a result, while Charise pretended to fight the charges, claiming that there had been an intruder, the result was inevitable and the trial was the media event of Gotham – the city’s youngest billionaire a murderess. She protected Trevor, kept his name out of it. The press, in turn, tore her apart. The ‘Butcher Brat’ and the ‘Spoiled Slaughterer’ were their favourite pair of titles, but they were universally unkind and the public bayed like hounds for her blood. They were to get it, though everyone predicted that the heiress to the Carnes fortune would never be given a guilty verdict. They were wrong. She was found guilty, though with the note that she was only guilty of manslaughter by virtue of diminished capacity. And then they sent her to Arkham. Just as Charise Carnes had planned, though nobody knew it except her. She was only eighteen (the trial took a year of her life) and she had chosen to be committed to Arkham Asylum. Not to be ‘rehabilitated’ though, no – as if she was at fault for anything but weakness that night. No. She was there to learn. And learn she did. She learnt from every single inmate, persuading them to help her one way or another, soaking up every lesson that Arkham had to teach about killing, about sadism, about torture, about fear and about madness. She took the Charise Carnes that had existed before and remade herself in the remorseless avenger that she knew she had to be in order to find justice for her family. Charise honed herself physically and mentally, though she was careful to conceal it from the guards. Of course, there was a limit to what she could learn, most of the time. The guards kept a protective eye on her, thinking her still a weak girl, a lost lamb alone among the wolves. Was she scared? Yes. But the time that changed her the most were forty eight hours. There was a breakout. The inmates escaped their cells or were set loose – among the chaos, no one quite knows what happened exactly. But Charise was left alone, utterly alone, for those two days. Alone, in a prison full of the worst men in America. She had gone in a girl, polite and cooperative, seemingly sweet and naïve. The guards felt bad for her. The creature that walked back into her cell at the end of the two days was polite, yes, and cooperative, but the more perceptive guards looked at her and saw that… something had changed. Regardless, Charise was to remain in Arkham for nearly two years. That was all it took. At the end of that time, she bought her way to an appeal and was found innocent by virtue of the jury having been tampered with. It had, incidentally – Charise had bought her own guilty verdict just in case. Now, though, she bought, bribed or blackmailed the judge and the witnesses, ensuring that she was released first on appeal and then simply released. She was utterly innocent in the eyes of the law, just as she had known herself to be all along, though many of the people refused to believe it and the press continued to be unkind and unsympathetic at best. Charise though did not care. She had more important things to do. At first, she moved slowly. Her father had controlled many important men – Charise retied those strings and added more by reaching out to police officers and judges and politicians at all levels. She worked on them, persuading some, bribing others, blackmailing or intimidating still more. As long as they would dance to her tune, she did not care why they danced. At the same time, she began to assemble a coterie of metahumans around her and put the pieces in place to make the Three Towers and Cherry Hill the vision that her parents had wanted. Money was no object, after all. She was careful and clever and soon she had her finger on the pulse of Gotham City. And then she created Knightfall. The name, naturally, was always a pun on the Batman’s title as the ‘Dark Knight’ of Gotham, but it also represented the fall of darkness upon the criminals that strangled Gotham. She created her armour, intensified her training and then, weeks after her release, she went after Trevor. And she destroyed him. Where before she had been afraid of him, the bleeding wreck of a man she created was terrified of her now – but she refused to let him die. Instead, sewing his eyes shut, she crippled him and dragged him back to her new home where she keeps him still. Now Charise intends to start reaching out, gathering more followers even as she instils fears into the criminals of Cherry Hill. Her new-founded Three Towers Army works to give the area hope in turn. Knightfall descends. POWERS AND ABILITIES KNOWN POWERS: N/A KNOWN ABILITIES: Martial Arts – People tend to underestimate Charise Carnes, even as Knightfall. This is understandable. She hides behind her bodyguards, tends to avoid anything remotely resembling a ‘fair fight’ like the plague and prefers the knife in the back. So, when she punches you in precisely the right spot to drive all the air from your lungs or twists your arm until it breaks, well, it tends to be a deeply unpleasant surprise. It tends to be a double surprise because of Charise’s particular style of fighting. Her training comes from three main sources. The first are the Judo lessons that she took as a young girl, looking to impress her father, and she earned a black belt in that discipline at the youngest age possible. Her training included the prohibited techniques such as the do-jime, as nothing was too good for Kenneth Carnes’ daughter. The second, rather less formal school was none other than the infamous Arkham Asylum. There, Charise learnt how to take the training that she already had and apply it to breaking people. Here, she learnt how to hurt others, how to gouge eyes and break fingers to gain an advantage among other rather less pleasant tricks. And since she got out of Arkham, she has taught herself all the little pressure points and nerve clusters on a human body that can be so useful in a fight. Using gang members as dummies, naturally. In a fight, Knightfall tends to focus on the use of her arms. Punches are naturally a large part of this, but also elbows, palm strikes and slaps – anything goes, so long as she wins. Her blows are always aimed at critical points – solar plexus, chin, joints – so as to magnify her not exactly impressive strength. And, if she gets the chance, Charise will absolutely go for crippling joint locks. The uses of her legs are limited to the occasional blow with her knee and those crippling judo holds. In short, just because she doesn’t seem the type, people should not underestimate Knightfall. At the least, it is likely to be a painful mistake. Knife Fighting – This is Charise’s preferred means of combat. Naturally ambidextrous, she has trained herself to a high standard of fighting with the twin knives she ‘inherited’ from Trevor. Fast on her feet and dextrous with her hands, she tends to wield them like scalpels, inflicting death by a thousand cuts at critical points rather than going for the throat. Why? Quite apart from being a sadist, she feels this is the safest way as it does not involve risking herself. That said, her blades are good enough to punch through body armour and she will go for a killing thrust if the opening presents itself. Stealth – While she is certainly not at a vigilante’s level in this, Charise can be quite quiet when she wants to be and certainly impressively so for a woman in high heels. Part of this is just natural poise, part of it comes from learning how to remain beneath the notice of the truly dangerous prisoners of Arkham. Persuasion – As noted in her personality, Charise is surprisingly charismatic and has a knack for seeing those who have been hurt in similar ways to her own pain. She is able to take this and use it to convince such people that her way is the right way, that she can help them. More to the point, she has a genuine gift for inspiring them to believe in her and her cause to the point of killing for her. True, she tends to pick those who have already killed for good reason. But Charise is genuinely persuasive when she wants to be and is quite capable of turning almost anyone to her cause given time and a place to start. When persuasion fails, she is also an adept user of blackmail, bribery and other such means of coercion but she prefers genuine loyalty. It is more reliable. Torture – Another side of her ability to persuade others is Charise’s instinctive ability to cause pain. She has a natural understanding of how to hurt people physically that only really came to the surface during her time in Arkham thanks to her ‘training’ there. There, she learnt how to keep a man alive and in agony. As Knightfall, this is part of her stock in trade, essentially, particularly with the vicious knives she likes to employ. Unusually, she rarely tortures anyone in search of information. No, she is purely interested in the agony of the criminals she practices on and then their eventual death. Influence – Perhaps not an ability per se, but Charise has (despite her youth and status as a newcomer) already built or inherited quite the little network throughout the city of Gotham. She has judges, cops and politicians under her influence, through bribery, blackmail or simple belief. In short, she is near-untouchable without absolutely indisputable proof. Otherwise, she will be out on bail within a day. This also grants her an impressive ability to get at records, which further aids her in building her network further, and access to the security camera feeds of the city. STRENGTH LEVEL: Charise has the strength of a girl her size and build who engages in regular extensive exercise. WEAKNESSES: Human – Despite the near-supernatural aura she cultivates for herself, Charise is just a human without any metahuman powers. She is just a human girl, admittedly one of exceptional athletic ability, who is vulnerable to all the hurt and torment that can be visited upon an ordinary young woman. She can be shot, stabbed, beaten, starved, drowned… the list goes on. She also has strict physical limits on what she can do. Her strength is limited as is her stamina. Insane – Charise is not crazy in the sense that she is outwardly a gibbering lunatic. She is however broken and twisted and very certainly not mentally well. As such, she has a very different way of looking at the world to others though it does not make her any less dangerous. As such, though she is usually rational and rigidly controlled, there are certain topics that will bring out the violence and the madness in her. Such as… Trevor – Charise’s former boyfriend. Any suggestion that she should let him go or that he has been punished enough will certainly receive a furious response. Overconfident – Arrogant, self-satisfied and smug, Charise has a tendency to think herself unbeatable. True, she can lose battles, but she can never lose the war in her own mind. Indeed, she thinks that she has already won. Naturally, this can be a potentially dangerous conceit to have and it could be a major stumbling block should it lead her to underestimate her opponents. PARAPHERNALIA EQUIPMENT: Knightfall Costume - The basis of the Knightfall armour is a customised fitted bodysuit in deep purple. As noted, it is custom-fitted to Charise’s body and it covers her from the very top of her neck to her toes. A zip runs up the back while a motif of thorns entwined with flowers runs down both sides. This bodysuit is made of a similar Kevlar weave to that used in the Batfamily’s costumes though of slightly inferior make. It still protects against most bullets and knives. Over this, Charise wears a tight, dark grey breastplate which laces up the side of her torso. At its lowest point, this reaches her belly button and it comes with long, slightly baggy sleeves of the same colour. The breastplate itself is reinforced, hardened armour designed to take an armour-piercing round and stop it. A curious cross-like symbol is emblazoned on the chest plate in red, somewhat resembling a combination of a Celtic cross and an axe-like shape. As far as accessories go, her boots are thigh-high ones, in the same dark purple as her bodysuit. A band of gold runs around the tops while segmented armour of blood red protects her knees. The heels are raised but not so far as to make it difficult for her to fight in them though Charise’s style of fighting helps here too. Elbow length gloves protect her hands, drawn in tight at the wrists with bands of small metal triangles. Purely for decoration at this point is the dark purple belt looped very loosely around her waist to rest on her hips (though it does hold the sheathes for her twin knives at the small of her back) but what most people tend to focus on is the mask. Knightfall’s mask is golden in colour and made of the same bullet proof armoured material as her breastplate. It lacks any real suggestion of a face – the only evidence of its wearer being human are the twin blank white lenses through which Charise can see – and the only decoration is a repetition of the flower and thorn motif under each eye. Not that everyone can see it – Charise covers the functional parts of her outfit with a floor length hooded cape. This wraps fully around her shoulders and is pinned in place at her shoulders with a golden disc either side. The outside of the cape is the same dark purple as her bodysuit while the inside is blood red. Quite often, this leaves her mask in shadows, so that her face simply appears to be a black, empty void. Charise rather likes this effect. Walkie-Talkie – Though this is admittedly rather lower tech than the communicators employed by others, Charise has the best encrypted versions money can buy. They are sleek, supposedly unbreakable and capable of operating under almost any conditions. They are also far harder to trace than a specialized system. TRANSPORTATION: Limousine – As Charise Carnes, Gotham’s Princess and so on, she naturally travels around in an expensive limo with the expected modern conveniences. Charise’s is perhaps unusual in that it is heavily armoured as well. As Knightfall, Charise doesn’t travel far as yet. She tends to be found close to her base, so hasn’t yet needed transport. But she is considering a motorcycle as well as planning to learn how to use one of those cable guns that the Batman and his allies favour so much. WEAPONS: Knightfall’s preferred weapons are surprisingly simple. They are a pair of matched knives, not especially ornate in design though they are quite well made for their purpose. The hilts are both black wood, with simple screws holding them together. The blades are kept razor sharp to the point that they can pierce body armour when used with skill, with a gently curving edge leading up to their pointed tips that betrays their intended purpose as skinning knives. Their significance to Charise is because these two knives were the very ones used to kill her family. In her mind, using them to kill criminals in turn is the height of poetic justice. EXAMINATION RECORD “I don’t hate them, you know." Charise’s innermost refuge, her sanctum sanctorum, was her office. Decorated in the most modern style money could buy, it was a world away from her father’s old office – which was the reason for her choice. Yes, it would have been comforting to sit in her father’s old chair behind his old desk and imagine that she could feel him watching over her from beyond, but it would have been a lie. Charise needed to grow up and she had wiped the slate clean the moment that she had returned to the Three Towers on her release from Arkham. It had all to go. The antique paintings. The old desk. The familiar green carpet. And, most of all, the old comfortable chair, where she had occasionally sat to do her homework. It all had to go and it had gone, replaced with a chic, modern style that her father would have hated. It was all black and white, lacking the colours of the original décor. And Charise preferred it that way. It was her office now, a place that was hers alone and where she felt no need to worry about feeling some imaginary ghost peering over her shoulder. There were ghosts enough and more at the house. There, Charise had lacked the will to order changes. On those rare occasions that she slept there, she used her old room, while her parents’ room remained exactly as it had been. A museum, a tribute to them. Somewhere that she could go and touch her mother’s clothes or breathe in the faint, musty smell of her dad. It still lingered, faint but there. She knew that the staff, those who stayed with her, did not approve. But she refused to abandon that one, single, simple indulgence. The one thing that remained the same in the office was the window. It was still the same, behind the desk where Charise was now sat, staring out at the cityscape beyond. Sunset was approaching, the sun drifting ever lower towards the horizon. And Charise Carnes sat, watching, her back straight as a rod, her shoulders back. Her posture was, as always, perfect. “The Batman and the ones like him, I mean. I don’t know that they can be saved anymore. They’ve seen so much, but they still don’t seem to understand. It’s not their fault. Perhaps it’s his.” She paused, thoughtfully. “He was the first, after all. The others just follow in his footsteps – perhaps some of them know what needs to be done but they are not willing to do it.” It was true. None of them seemed willing to kill, and killing was what was necessary. Criminals did not understand anything else. Not even fear, not really – it would deter them for a while at the most, but eventually they would overcome it. Only by drowning them in pain and blood and fear could crime be destroyed. It was a cancer and it had to be cut out before the city could even begin to recover. A chime sounded, her computer’s clock reminding its owner of the time. Charise blinked, her eyes refocusing on the alert before she nodded. “I apologise, Sally, but we’ll need to finish this later.” “Of course, Miss Carnes,” the strong-woman said, though she hesitated slightly before she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Now alone, Charise opened a secret drawer in her desk, removing a single knife that she turned over in her fingers slowly. Others had shown less respect for holy relics. And then she stood, moving with purposeful steps to the embroidered green curtain that screened an alcove towards the rear of her office. It was tucked away, out of sight. Deliberately, it did nothing to draw the eye. Charise drew it back, revealing a metal cage that filled the small space within. Within it, a lone man knelt – though he had little choice. His naked body was restrained, a heavy metal chain stapled to the floor preventing him from moving in any but the smallest of ways. His skin was littered with poorly healed scars, his hair and beard were long and unkempt. He stank too. But the worst thing was his eyes. They had been sewn shut. Charise did not smile. “Good afternoon, Trevor,” Her voice was hard and cold, but a core of sadistic anticipation twisted within it. “It’s time for you and me to have another chat…” subject examined by Doctor Cyber

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=style, width: 40px;] K N I G H T F A L L

created by ZETTA

[Doctor Cyber]