Snippet #816676

There could be no doubt, among those who monitored such things, that the present attack being carried out on the Lennox Building was being orchestrated by someone connected to Sanctuary.

Anel couldn't help but growl audibly from the shadow of his lair when the first sounds of commotion erupted in the the streets above and nearest to the Lennox building as it burned. The point of the attack was clear. Somebody was trying to get back at Andrew Lennox the creator behind Genesis. What better way to send a message than to destroy one of Andrew most symbolic architectural achievements? Yet the fact that the building was burning during the peak of the afternoon showed a particular amount of malice. How many innocent lives were currently working before the chaos broke out?

"Always with the fire." Anel muttered, remembering how Genesis had burned much the same. "someday you're going to be held acountable for cleaning up your mess."

At that the shadow-man disappeared from his concrete habitat shifting into his corporeal form as Anel projected himself like a great swooping bird up and out of his haunt and into the streets above. To anyone looking it almost appeared as if a great cloud of steam had erupted from a sewer vent as it passed through the streets heading straight for the upper floors of the Lennox building. Anel didn't bother entertaining the notion of trying to stop William Livingston. The initial damaged had already been done and unless the fire responders could do some serious damage control along with the sprinkler systems the building was doomed to burn from the inside out. Anel wasn't about to let the hordes of innocent people burn along with it. At least not all of them.

Using his corporeal abilities which were separate from his physical body Anel took a moment to identify which floors had the largest groupings of people trapped on them. The most vulnerable were the people closest to the upper floors as the black smoke began to seep in level by level. Pretty soon most of the people on these floors wouldn't be able to see where they were going and would probably succumb to smoke inhalation and mass hysteria long before the flames actually reached them. There was at least a few things Anel could do about that.

Centering himself about fifteen floors below the highest floor, Anel's corporeal form began to build up its strength using the combined energy being released by the fire above him along with the collective panic driven energy being built up by the large grouping of people stuck in the elevator waiting areas.

A minute or so later a second explosion (more of an implosion really) rocked the Lennox building. This time blowing out every window that sat between the 17th and 32nd floors. It was also true that every glass watering cooler along with quite a few peoples lenses also cracked. Anel's abilities weren't an exact science after all. There was a certian amount of random chance involved.

Now caught up an a whirlwind of righteousness along with the accumulated energy that the shadow man had built up in order to shatter the windows a feral sounding cry erupted as Anel used his corporeal form, intense speeds, and ability to pass through solid matter to effectively take hold of whole groups of normal people, many of them screaming in alarm, as they felt their bodies jerk violently while Anel dragged them six and seven at a time through the multiple floors underneath them. To the poor people experiencing this phenomenon the sensation felt very much like a combination of intense vertigo, a series of sudden short drops, and the worst full body tingling anybody could imagine.

The shadow man repeated this maneuver a dozen or so times all within a little over ten minutes focusing on the area's closest to the elevators and beginning from the 17th floor and working up. If he'd done it any other way there would have been a greater risk of colliding with groups of individuals on the floors below him. Although thanks to the alarms going off it was safe to bet that most of the people on the first ten or fifteen floors where already pouring out into the streets. Anel could extend his abilities to a moderate sized group of average people but he wasn't capable of doing so with everybody all at once. By the time he was through nearly 70 people had been deposited in the main elevator lobby on the first floor. Dazed and very confused but well enough in most cases to collect themselves and help each other stumble out into the streets. If anyone had been counting the might have averaged that the shadow man had plucked two groups of about five people between the 17th and 32nd floors.

It was enough.

Enough for rational objectivity to take hold again and for the Shadow-man to recede from the Lennox building entirely and pull his corporeal form back into himself from several yards away on a different street where he stood. His form obscured in shadow. Having collected himself again Anel sank against the brick wall of the alley way he's been standing in as a strong combination of intense vertigo and nausea over took him forcing the very tall, very pale, man in the trench coat deeper into the shadows. Anel wasn't as young as he once was and feats like what he's just done were not easy on his constitution.

It was terrorist act of personal vengeance like this that had caused organizations such as A.R.C.H.A.N.G.E.L. to come into existence and while that particular organization was no more some of its most unifying principles lived on thanks to individuals like himself. Though exhausted and momentarily exposed, Anel was satisfied.

It would have to be enough, even if it technically wasn't.