One of the Great Lords of the Dark

Those outliers weren't outliers for long. The numbers, so promising, held and then grew in the months following the show's premiere. Christof was pleased.

More than pleased. He was triumphant.

All across the world, people were watching. From the objective point of view, it wasn't even a very interesting show. It was the show of an infant whose life, from crying and being changed to being burped and set down for a nap was being watched by millions of strangers.

Each package of diapers was carefully angled to show the camera the label.

Same with her shampoo.

Each bottle of formula was held just the right way.

Brand-name footie pajamas.

Cuddly stuffed animal of a popular children's cartoon character, already associated with its own cereal and fruit snack.

The world just ate it up.

It had not seemed like little Evie was going to be born on schedule, so Christof had had to take the matter into his own hands. The network's doctors had induced labor a good while ago, now, long enough for the party being held for the directors and crew in the control room, celebrating the beginning of a promising new chapter of their grand project, to be set up and begun.

Now, amid the cheerful chatter of the group, cameramen and writers standing around with their glasses of company-bought champagne, Chistof alone keeps an eye on the screen, timing each contraction. Though everyone else is so sure of the show's success, he could not afford things to go wrong now, of all times.

Over the sounds of labor, the repeated insistence of doctors that the mother must push, he can hear James Ashford from Advertising bragging to Melissa Elkins from Lighting about his new car.

Personally, Christof thinks the man a fool for bragging about a new car after having totaled his previous one by driving too fast during that freak blizzard in December. It was only luck that he didn't get badly injured and freeze to death in the wreckage, as Thomas McNally and Sara Mendoza had.
Christof had enough trouble finding replacements for those two positions; having to fill three would have delayed the start of the show even further, even into summer. However, from what he's seen, the two replacements he found were turning out to be superior to their predecessors in nearly every way.

Letting his mind drift from the events on-screen, he can hear the vague voices of those replacements, laughing over some shared joke as they help with the pouring of champagne for those of the crew who haven't yet gotten a glass. They work well together, those two,
Christof thinks, thank goodness. There is no use in having top-notch people working for you if they don't get along. Luckily, with these two their relationship seems to extend only to the boundaries of the workplace. Nothing more complicated than a good working relationship,
just as Christof would want.

Not like that Richard French from Merchandise, Christof's thoughts change gears as he hears that annoying laugh from off to his left. He's always hitting on the new secretaries and telling off-color jokes again to see how they react. Christof can practically feel the heat of those secretaries' blushes from where he sat. He makes a mental note to get someone to send a note to Richard, politely warning him of the details of the company's idea of proper businesslike behavior and its stance towards harrassment.

A slight touch at his elbow brings Christof back from his thoughts: a hand, offering a glass of champagne. "One must celebrate the birth of a new age," Adrian Doyle smiles down at him. "The doctors know what they are doing, as do the rest of the immediate cast; they've been
rehearsing this for ages." At the resulting look from Christof, Adrian continues. "So I'd think you could afford to take five minutes to celebrate your success."

Christof hesitates for a long moment, then his normally impassive face relaxes into a small, rare smile. "This is something worth celebrating, I suppose," he says, taking the offered glass and standing. It being the first movement they've seen their boss make in
the past half hour, the assembled crew all shift their hold on their glasses and give scattered applause.

From what he can tell, they're expecting him to make a speech. He hadn't prepared one, the party itself had been rather spur of the moment, but Christof had always been a great improvisor. That quality had saved the Truman Show from catastrophe many times, especially when
Truman had begun getting suspicious. It had not been able to save the show forever, in the end, but it had been a good run. And now here he was, standing on the brink of what will, if he has anything to say about it, be another good run.

A better run.

There are words in his head, inspiring words of promise and visions of the future, but all of them fade as the familiar air-raid wail of a newborn breaks through the dim maternity-ward sounds from the speaker behind him, crying against the sudden cold, crying for the loss of the
warmth it had known.

Christof smiles in this moment of triumph, raising his glass. "A new age," he proclaims, and tilts back the glass.

"Sir, you're expected in the boardroom in twenty minutes," Christof's assistant, Chloe, reminded him as she set down his morning's third cup of coffee.

"Hm?" Christof looked up from the calender he had been perusing, a faint line visible between his drawn-down eyebrows. "Oh, yes. The interviews are today." Gingerly taking a sip of the scalding black coffee, he looks down at the calender on his desk again, specifically at the day in March that is circled in red, labeled clearly as "Due Day". "About time, too. We're cutting it close as it is."

Such a nasty business, this horrid winter. Construction work and costume production had miraculously been ahead of schedule, but then that freak blizzard had descended upon them and everything ground suddenly to a halt. It had been like the whole city was dead, the only noise being that of the wind and the ice. It had been January before things began to thaw a bit, as the disaster relief people had come in to help restore power to the city. Snowploughs had been brought in. It was a terrible time, Christof knew, as many homeless people had died and there had been fires in the poorer sections, where people had left their stoves on overnight in an effort to stay warm, but most important was that the lives of two of his key staff had also been claimed in one of the many car accidents caused by the sudden blizzard.

Christof didn't have the time to spare to go over the qualifications of the many underwriters and minor advertising managers to see who might take on the roles that had been left empty; their chosen star, an unborn girl from an unwanted pregnancy, was due in March (Christof had decided long before they found a suitable star that her name would be Evie), and time was short. He felt that some new blood was needed in the crew: fresh talent, who might make the network's rebound from Truman's disappearance that much greater.

Today, he had the task of finding those who would have the talent and ability to fill such demanding roles.

Christof closed the tome-like calender of deadlines and appointments and put it away, taking his coffee with him. Time to get things done.

* * *

"Good morning, everyone," Christof said as he walked into the board room, still trailed by Chloe. After everyone had replied their greetings, he continued, taking his seat at the head of the table. "We have some work ahead of us, today. We need a new head of the Scenario and Script Departments, and a new head of Advertisement. The loss of Bill and Mary hit us all hard, I know," he lowers his head for a moment, more in regret for the delay in preparation the deaths caused than actual grief, "but we must press on. I understand that this is a somewhat unorthodox method, not promoting from within our own ranks, but I feel that fresh talent is needed in our new start. That way," he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling a bit, "we can make this even better than what we have done before. Our creation," my creation, he thinks, "will continue to grow."

The interviewers, all higher-ups in the various parts of the network administration, nodded agreement.

Christof sipped his coffee again before putting the mug down and taking his Mont Blanc from his pocket, looking up at Chloe. "Go tell those waiting outside that we'll be interviewing for the Scenario and Script-writer position first, and send the first one in, will you?"

The days have been getting darker, these past few weeks. The clouds are so thick that it is impossible to tell where the sun is at any time of day. Noon is merely brightened, frosty twilight.

In the snowbound silence of noon, his shape an inkblot across the winterbound lawn, the Black Rider walks back towards the bar. His bearing is proud and arrogant, and above all, triumphant. His black-gloved right hand is closed around something.

Hallo, all. I know there hasn't been much of the Black Rider around lately due to his mun (raindrenched) being caught up in school work and such, but there has been a change of management. Now, everyone's favorite (or second-favorite) Lord of the Dark is being mun'd by saphyria. She promises to let him out of his cage occasionally, for snark and Dark deeds.

Speaking of which...

Last we saw of our hero villain, he was very much weakened by his foiled attempt at getting out into a world other than the DiR-verse. A world where he could find a foothold and have another shot at bringing the Dark into power, and taking over. Since then, he's been... very weak, spending most of his time thinking and quasi-sleeping. He has very little power in him. All he has is Milliways and the space outside of Time. To him, there is no question of where he'd rather be. He considers Milliways to be his workplace, for the time being, because it's all he has to work with.

So, in his time of thought since his defeat, he's been thinking about the place itself. Milliways is a place full of emotions and emotional situations. Love, lust, friendship, goodnatured snark, pointed remarks, awkward flirting, awkward silences, cold looks, dislike, anger, bar fights, occasional bouts of torture, betrayal, guilt, jealous boyfriends, bad breakups, anguish, love of cruelty, hate.

Now, say the Black Rider used some of his remaining power to spell some innocuous item to collect the power behind the negative emotions in the bar. The item, not in-and-of-itself Dark, could be left under the couch or on the underside of a table, where it would not be noticed by the patrons, or those who could potentially mess up his plan. Left there, it would collect and store the power of the negative emotions of those around it.

___
EDIT: Gen has suggested he get a boost of power from a third-party-evil-party to give him the strength he would need to make the item into the power-of-neg-emotion-catcher/container. He hasn't been in the bar for long enough that he doesn't know.... much of anyone who would be willing to give him any power, other than perhaps Yrael, who would do it for a lark. (Literally.) We'd need a character who would be willing and able to give him power on short notice. Thing is, who?
---

Of course, the Black Rider would probably only have until Twelfth Night to get this done. Otherwise, he'd miss his chance. 'Tis the season, and all that.

Once the spelled dark-emotion-collector was "full", or on Twelfth Night, the Black Rider would siphon the power out of it and into himself, returning himself to his former power. It'd be a sneaky, non-rule-breaky ( no violence, no business, and no naked) way fulfill his current goal. Through this, he could return himself to his former strength under the noses of the Light Brigade.

What say you?

The Rider paused as the door to Milliways disappeared behind him.

On a sidewalk in a town somewhere in Suffolk, the Rider breathed deeply, taking in the scents of this new world, seemingly so very like his own.

Only, this one was pristine and untouched by the likes of the Light or Dark. Except, of course, for that which lives in the hearts of all humanity.

The Rider savored that thought for a moment.

The moment passed. Now, to work. For all the heady sense of new-found freedom, he knew that he was gravely weakened from his previous defeat, and the fact that he was now alone acutely reminded him that he had little time to find enough power to make his removal from this new world unfeasible. He needed power, and fast —which simply meant the largest, nearby source of humanity. London. The further away he was from here when his absence from the bar was discovered, the better.

After only a moment of thought, looking around the crowded, tourist-filled street, he had an idea. Nonchalantly, the Rider stepped off of the sidewalk and into the middle of an intersection. Disappearing from view as soon as the oncoming driver had swerved out of the way, the Rider was able to enjoy the resulting well-orchestrated wreck that involved at least three cars, and the general clogging of traffic and confusion.

Drivers got out of their cars—many of whom were tourists, already cross
after a long day of sight-seeing—and started yelling at each other, especially at the man who swerved.

"Are you mad, man? What'd you swerve for?"

"There was a man in the road! I didn't want to hit him!"

"You're barking! You can see there's no one there!"

"You'd better have good insurance…."

The Rider chuckled to himself as he slipped through the mess of cars, an unpleasant smile on his face. A taste of strife was just what he needed. Knowing he'd better get going before anyone showed up to try and cathc him, he slipped into a black Volkswagon Polo, rudely shutting the drivers-side door on the man who had stepped out of his car to see
what the confusion was on up ahead.

"Oy! That's my car! You, there! My car!" cries the man, adding to the shouts in the already crowded gathering.

The Rider shifted the car into reverse, made a U-turn and sped away as quickly as possible. It was not long before he was cursing the chintzy rental car. What I wouldn't do for my own damn horse back,he thought grimly as the car hummed to reach higher speeds.

The Rider lies on the bed in his room at Milliways, head pillowed on his hands. He is fully clothed except for his shoes, which he has kicked off.

It is so strange to sleep again, especially in a bed. When in Rome….

He is smiling to himself, an unpleasant, greedy, and satisfied smile. Last night had been extremely gratifying. The foolish old man had hardly seen it coming. He chuckles to himself. Blinded by his love for others. Ha! Love, the Rider thinks with scorn, love is so easily manipulated.

He feels full inside. Using his powers once more had filled him with such a rush of adrenaline. Weakened as they are, a bitter voice in his head reminds him, but the Rider pushes it out of his mind. He is riding high on his victory.

Still smiling, he wonders how many people were hurt by his manipulation of this Anakin Skywalker. He knows Peter had interfered at the end, trying to recall Anakin to himself. The Rider frowned, that one was always interfering. It may have been just as well that it ended before it had really begun; the Rider may not have been able to control himself and crossed one of the invisible rules of this place, which could have resulted in being throw outside Time once more. One of the Rider's eyes twitches at this thought, the only sign of trepidation at this idea. This, however, does not expunge Peter's actions from the Rider's mind.

He had seen Anakin turn on Peter as he made his escape; he hopes Peter wasn't mortally wounded. The unpleasant smile is back on his face. Presumably Anakin had been talked back from the ledge since then--an unfortunate thing as men tend to be more cautious after being burned--but no doubt many of his friends were disappointed at his actions. It was so delightful how much harm could be accomplished through a single man. The Rider's smile becomes very wolf-like at this thought.

All in all, it hadn't been a bad night.

The Rider stretches languorously before standing and walking to the window in his room. He stands before the cold, glass pane and stares out on the black velvet backdrop of the universe, thousands of pinpricks of light shining out against it. His white smile stands out in the gloom all around him. Instead of sleeping, he stands at his window blending with the shadows until all that can be seen are his brilliant blue eyes, burning out of the dark like two cold stars.