NPC: The Darkness

We've all seen the footage a million times. It went beyond viral, it went epidemic. It's CCTV footage, from somewhere in the Docklands. It seems to show about 10 people (the footage is fairly dark and grainy) having an argument. They would later be identified as members of the McDougal and the Moretti crime families, a deal, a fight, a trade, who knows.

Then, 2:21 minutes into the footage, one of the McDougal party, Sam, is lifted into the air. Slowly, clutching his throat. Guns are unholstered, people get agitated, start looking above for drones. One man actually grabs Sam's feet and tries to pull him down.

After about 10 seconds, his head is violently twisted about sideways. He's now clearly dead, and his body falls limp to the ground. Shots are fired and the footage ends.

This would be forever simply the common enough footage of the underworld being weird. If not for a hacker that decided to enhance the man's neck.

 And there, you can see something. What depends on who you are. If you are that inclined, you can see just a plain shadow, due to the multiple light sources in that dock. But if you squint JUST right, the main shadow right across the man's throat is unmistakably a claw. A big one at that.

The other men (the ones that survived the fight) claim they saw nothing. Just shadows. And with that, a legend was born. People have it a name and threat little children with it. 'If you don't behave The Darkness comes for you'. Even among adults it is now common to hear 'the thief went in and out like he was The Darkness'.

Ever since that grainy footage, around 10 bodies have been found, killed in the same way. Men and women, all hard criminals, their necks snapped like twigs. In at least two other instances, there were dozens of witnesses. And always, ALWAYS, in the dark or at night. In places filled with shadows and darkness.

Something, it seems, is out there.

This one is a silly idea. A failed stealth operative experiment left a man (an android? a Gen?) able to fuse his body colour and texture with ambient shadows. Who knows what this would do to a persons' sanity? Hence New Hades newest vigilante....