A Bloodstained Mantle

Your first thought as you hear her surrender is of anger, although not at her, you shouldn't have gotten distracted by the fight and forgotten what you were here for, you should have tried to restrain her, or realized what was behind you before she smashed it.

But now isn't the time to get distracted with ifs and buts, so without further ado you use the only thing you have available to restrain her, your own body.

Your left arm grows boneless, flexible, with iron hard cords of muscle running through it as you wrap the tentacle around her arms like a set of makeshift handcuffs and with her secured like that you begin dragging her out the way you came.

You needed to visit the jail anyway.

"Where are we going?" Asks your unconcerned prisoner, humming a merry tune as she goes.

You grow a hidden eye on the back of your head to look at her as you answer, your face growing more and more beautiful as you turn up the charm, preparing to interrogate her, "I think you know the answer to that." You say coldly, "I wonder if your boss will bother trying to bust you out."

She smiles cheekily, "How do you know I even have a boss?" Unfortunately her triumphant declaration is somewhat undercut by cold hard facts. "You already said you did." You flatly reply.

"I- fuck." She sighs to herself, the words pulling a vindictive grin across your face, the closest thing you've had to a smile since you left Adamant's bedside. "So that's a no then?" Your voice dripping with cheerful venom as your neck-eye stares her down.

"Of course it's not a no! They'd never leave me like that, it's not how we operate." She exclaims, her face flushing with rage as she glares back at your eye.

"How exactly do you operate then?" You ask pointedly, "Heck, who are you even working for? The Madhouse?" Your grip around her wrists tightening for a second despite your best efforts to hide how much you want to know exactly you need to throw in cell for the rest of time.

And also to hide the inhibition loosing venom you're subtly injecting into her, each needle so small she shouldn't notice them, not unless you squeeze her again or something.

"Those visionless wastes of talent? No, why would I be working for them? We've got plans, we're going to-" At that point she realizes what she's saying as her eyes widen and her zealous tirade ends with the frantic snap of a fast closing jaw.

You stop in your tracks for a moment, though you don't turn to face her, a sudden flood of calming chemicals the only thing stopping you from losing your composure.

Then, after a deep breath you continue walking through the dim tunnels, you're close to the room you entered through now, the fresh air will clear your head.

"What part of those plans told you he needed to die?" You ask, your voice suddenly raw, "What did you try to kill him?" One foot in front of the other you tell yourself, one foot in front of the other, don't lose your temper, you need her breathing if you're going to catch her boss.

Luckily the venom is starting to do its work, although it definitely doesn't make her any less infuriating.

She laughs, "You don't already know? I didn't know it was possible to hate people as much as… some people hate Adamant, one of them wanted both your bones for a flute." She says, as all three of your eyes widen in triumph, iron hard certainty filling your soul as you fail to find a sign of deception in the villain's face, while you still don't know who her boss is, you know at least one person she's been working with.

After all, that had always been Wind's favorite threat when she got really mad.

Mary falls silent as you arrive in the roofless room which you entered, giving you plenty of time think as you gaze upwards. "So, that vision you were talking about, what's the end goal?"

Mary opens her mouth, trying to find the right words as she looks at you almost pityingly, "We're going to remake this city." She tells you, sincerity dripping from her words even through the effects of the venom.

"And all it needs is Adamant's corpse and mine on top of it." You drily reply. "How are you going to do it?"

In response the villain stares you down… and down… and down… the silence stretching longer and longer as you scan her face before coming to a realization.

"You don't know. Do you."

She half-shrugs the gesture aborted by her bindings, "It's not very important to my job, is it?"

You sigh in disgust and move onto another question as you begin to pace around the room, preparing to slid a verbal knife into her, "So." You ask, your tone casual as can be, "How'd you get into this line of work Mary?"

Her gaze snaps up to meet your eyes, "How do you know my n- wait, did I already tell you- no, I wouldn't forget that in three minutes, how do you know my name?"

"I might have more powers than I am officially known to possess," you lie, "Now answer the question."

You half expected to be recognized, or to have the lie be dismissed, but after a moment she calms slightly, or at least forces a mask of serenity over her face, making no sign that she's seen through your lie, "Not much to tell." She says carefully, "I spent my life in some tiny little town, wasting it away punching people through walls, and then I got an offer to be a lot more than that, money, training, everything i ever wanted, a chance to matter, I made the obvious choice."

As she says that you get the sense that you've heard this before, more than that, you can almost hear those words coming from your own lips.

But those words, sincere as they might be, also ring false to your ears, or perhaps incomplete, although every sense available to you is saying that she's being honest.

You decide to press a little bit more, "To matter? I think there are better ways to accomplish that than going around assassinating heroes and trying to blow up novel architecture, I mean really." you say, gesturing to the tunnels behind you.

She sighs, disappointed but not surprised, "I assumed you wouldn't get it, nobody ever does, not until…" She shrugs, the motion stopping half way through as she remembers the binding around her arms. "The boss is better at making the proposal than me."

"Must be quite a boss." You say mildly, then casually slip in the thing you want to know most, "Now, where is Slip?"

At that Mary smiles, "No idea, but you two did capture the good doctor right? The one who wouldn't know how to shut his mouth if his life depended on it?"

Then she steps closer to you, "And since Adamant is still probably sleeping off that lungful of fancy super gas… oh I think I should warn you, before you start flying off to help," Mary smiles "I'm scared of heights."

O-O-O-O-O
Slip is very possibly sneaking into the Jail right now to either kill or rescue Doctor Destruction for obvious reasons and there's a pretty decent chance he succeeds on that if you don't do anything, and Mary is going to be less than cooperative if you bring her along to the scene of fight, so, what do you do?

[ ] Go Help and Bring Her With You

[ ] Leave Her Here and Go Help
-[ ] A restraint method:

[ ] Stay here and Keep An Eye On Her

[ ] Write In Option:

Sorry for the delay, hope the update is good enough to worth the wait.

Also, this quest has a discord if you're interested, although I will make sure that anything on there ends up here eventually so you shouldn't be missing anything if you decide not to join it.

SaberFail said:

Could we simply call another hero? That way we bring Mary in while they deal with Slip

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately there's a problem with that, well, more like two.

The first is that there are no other heroes in the city, not normally an insurmountable problem if not for problem two,

Remember that Yellowstone Fiasco that's been mentioned a couple of times? A lot of heroes left their cities to help deal with that, just like Chimera and Adamant did, and more importantly a lot of heroes got killed there, which means that a lot of places are in desperate need of help and STAR is stretched pretty thin.

And every villain group knows this, which means they're pushing more because responses are probably going to be pretty sluggish for a while unless they do something absolutely heinous, which means that everyone is even more stretched.

In other words, right now? You're on your own.

Once the villain gives her smirking declaration you stand there for a brief few seconds as you decide what to do, then you dose her with a sedative, knocking her out cold in less than a minute as you continue pretending to think.

For the fifth or sixth time today you regrow a pair of wings, although this time you add a flesh pocket to keep your phone inside and a harness of bones which emerges from your spine to form a cage which you place Mary inside before taking off.

The wind rushes through your hair as your wings beat furiously towards the jail, meanwhile inside the flesh pocket a hand holds your phone, an eye allows you to navigate the buttons, and a mouth allows you to talk to Commissioner Caddel,

"Don't panic Commissioner," you say as he answers the phone and interrupting his questions "But I'm pretty sure Slip is coming back for his accomplice, how secure is his cell?"

A long pause follows your words, "Maximum security, lowest level, underground, should I-"

"I really wouldn't suggest sending up more guards, Slip will rip anyone in front of him apart unless you've figured out his secret weakness in the last hour or so." You interrupt quickly. "I would suggest-" this time it's your turn to be interrupted. "Right, c-cut the elevator's power, Slip will have trouble bring him up," The Commissioner says quickly, his usual, skittish demeanor giving way slightly as more imminent danger draws his attention.

You nod, realizing a moment later that he can't see your face, "Yes, do that, I'll just… you fixed the vent problem?" As frustrating as it was when Viscous had snuck in and freed Curseling, and as angry as you had been when Earth had escaped out through them, you'd probably have to laugh if they hadn't fixed the problem.

Well, that or start tossing roadkill through some windows, although it's not like the two are all that opposed…

"It's- it's not just a matter of fixing the problem, yo- you can only make a roof so tough, but, um, now it's, it's been improved so-somewhat, and we a-added a few deterrents as w-well s-so i-if you were to do that, w-w-w-well I'm not sure how well you'd manage, could- could you call in Adamant?"

You pause, "I… no, I can't, he's- I'll explain it all after this mess is done." You promise, desperately hoping he'll accept it for now as you arrive and dive for the prison's entrance, hoping that you're not too late, that your best source of information is still alive.

He pauses, "Fine, I… I want that explanation soon though." You grunt with approval into the phone as you land in front of the jail, your wings vanishing once more as you enter, although you have to take a moment to fit Mary in through the door, that prison of bone is difficult to maneuver through the door after all, but after a moment you manage it, although the questioning glances your sleeping passenger earns you.

"New supervillain," you say in answer to the guard's questioning look, the simple answer somewhat sating his curiosity as you pass him and his friends and begin to not-quite-run through the halls.

Your plan is simple, collect the mad scientist, then leave immediately, although you have to admit that you're not too sure what to do right after that, maybe take him to another city.

Then the lights die, and you get a sinking feeling in your gut which spurs you into action, dashing through the hallways towards the elevator before prying open its door and leaping down the shaft, rapidly growing a set of claws on one hand and digging them into the wall to slow your fall before landing almost weightless on the lip of the entrance to the bottom floor.

You pull the door open in a frenzy of motion, metal screaming under your fingers as your nose and ears sharpen until you can smell the blood in the air as if you were standing an inch from Doctor Destruction's chest.

Legs lengthen and strengthen in an instant as a shout of purest rage escapes your lips, each jumping footstep bringing you there in moments.

And yet, you're still not fast enough, for when you arrive you see an insubstantial haze of a man stepping through the wall as blood drips from what is left of Doctor Destruction's still twitching body.

Although, you realize, perhaps body is premature, for his eyes still follow you, and despite the damage he speaks with intent and determination, though so quietly you need sharpened ears to make out the words.

"Oh, it's you." He wheezes, "You're late, fool."

You cross the room in a single stride and crouch next to him as you try to stem the bleeding despite knowing full well that's these wounds would kill just about anything. "Shut up, that or tell me everything you know about Slip and his boss."

"Alright then sidekick, try to remember this, write it down, I understand you have memory problems." the supervillain says, somehow managing a mocking tone through a mouthful of blood.

"Slip lived… on green street, in… in the house with the sun painting on the side, I'm not sure why he suddenly decided to move out and work for me, but maybe you'll be able to find something there." He says, his voice fading more and more with every word until finally it's so quiet you can barely hear it, even with your rapidly sharpening hearing.

Then, his last words delivered, Doctor Destruction dies, and with him, every chance for a clear answer about Adamant's murder.

Then, halfway through a fruitless search for Slip, your phone rings, it's the Commissioner, and it finally hits you that you'll need to tell him about Adamant's death, and then you'll have to tell the whole city.

Strangely though, the thing which you dread the most isn't breaking the news, it isn't even your enemies's reaction.

The thing you dread most is the funeral.

O-O-O-O-O

Adamant's will included nothing about his funeral beyond a generous sum set aside for it, frankly the Will didn't didn't involve much at all, which means it falls to you to plan it.

What kind of event would you like to arrange?

[ ] A small, private affair with a few of Adamant's close friends.

[ ] A public funeral, open to the city, let the public pay their respects.

What is your biggest priority?

[ ] Investigating Slip

[ ] Going after Wind and the Five Elements


I am so sorry about how late this was,