A Bloodstained Mantle

Realized I hadn't made this on one of my other projects in this setting and now that I've made it I might as well throw it here as well.

Eruptions: what people know of them in the modern day.

An Eruption occurs in response to strain and danger, mental or physical. This could be anything from looking down and realizing that your sister's boyfriend just blew a hole in your stomach to the dread of realizing that you're stuck living on the streets for the foreseeable future just as winter rolls in and that you might very well be dead a month from now or worse, that your will will fail and you'll move back in with your crazy cult family.

In essence, an Eruption is defined by *need.* by your lowest point, by sheer desperation, the point where you'd sell your soul to get out of whatever's happened to you. At which point the Eruption comes in like a miracle, like the hand of the moral universe, to save you in a moment of directionless awe and reverence as ten thousand shades of lightning writhe beneath your skin.

Just as crucial as need is the *drive*, no man woman or child to date has ever simply gained their powers, gone "neat" and gone on to live a normal life. Strife, want, and ambition follow the Erupted like a cloak they can never surrender, always, always, always spurring them forward.

This system cannot be gamed, you cannot induce artificially an Eruption by any but two means, the first is to simply throw people into misery and tortuous death until someone finally gets lucky and gets the power to throw of those chains. The second method was pioneered by the supervillain known as Doctor Crucible in 1922, he was of course later executed for crimes against humanity and every known sample of technology destroyed but samples of it and derivatives inspired by his research do still survive to this day.

Regardless, a power's manifestation depends upon several things, the most important and easiest to understand of which is the Need, a power will always solve the problem which spawned it unless truly impressive force is exerted after the fact in order to compensate. To date no power has been discovered which was unable to match ten well but mundanely armed men which did not have truly earth shattering power outside of a direct conflict.

Other factors include various patterns in one's life, their worldview, and if the Erupted has been in close contact with another Super in the period before their own Eruption.

If anyone would like to speculate what might have made someone like Chimera I'd be interested in hearing your guesses.

The city really is quite beautiful at night, especially from the air. In happier, less dangerous times you love to simply ride the air currents and watch the cars flash by, the signs change, and listen to the pounding rain and the waves smashing into the shore. Unfortunately tonight you've sadly got more important things to do. Things like sneaking into an outdated dockside Kaiju bunker owned by Fire, breaking some stuff, and making it look like someone else was responsible.

It proves almost embarrassingly easy to sneak inside, all you have to do is land on the roof, relying on the hammering rain and the thick fortification between you and the guards inside to mask your landing, climb down the wall on suction cups till you find a vent and flatten your bones to just barely slip it through the cracks and then reform it on the other side.

Honestly it's a little embarrassing. You've been doing stuff like this for two years now and somehow they never learn.

Nonetheless you drop from the window with feline grace and stalk through the poorly lit bunker on padded feet, taking pains to keep the sloppily stacked piles of cardboard and wooden boxes between you and the two guards in here with you, even if they do seem a little bit distracted by the icebox and the set of cards on the little table between them.

A quick search confirms your suspicions, this place is filled with all the usual things crime lords keep in their moderately well guarded and outdated bunker stockpiles, weapons (of the mundane sort) drugs of all the standard unpleasant variety… and something else.

There is a small box near the top of the pile, filled with pink pills, all labeled as Nost, which from its place of relative pride you're guessing is that new drug you've been hearing whispers about.

You lean backwards for a moment and sigh as quietly as you consider the situation, you briefly consider using your superhuman capabilities to test what exactly this new stuff does but decide against it an instant later and silently chastise yourself for the sheer stupidity of it. That sort of idiotic thinking is what got you detaching your tongue to throw it in the trash when you realized that you'd accidentally taste tested rat poop back when you were first starting out.

Taking a step back from certain embarrassing memories, you have to assess the situation, Fire is the oldest leader of the five and most set in his ways, so he's definitely not the first of them to start selling and he'd only follow suit if the others were doing noticeably better because of it, which means the rest of them have more of it.

Regardless you can't just leave this stuff around, which means it's time to do what you came here to do and luckily the rain gives you a lot more freedom to, after a radar ping and a set of enlarged ears confirm that there's nobody close enough to be endangered if you, say, light a match or two and, um, well… ok, there's no innocent sounding way to say this, you're going to start a fire.

In a few short moments the matches are placed somewhere in the pile where they'll smolder quietly for a while before the flames grow large enough to attract the guard's attention. Then you slip out the way you came in, produce a pair of binoculars, shift your shape into a facsimile of a sloppy costume a rank amateur would make to conceal their identity and fill in the false face of a short and hungry teen beneath it.

With that done, you sneak to the front and try your best to be caught snooping, eventually stooping to leaning in through the door, burner phone out and recording before feigning a tumble inside to finally catch their attention.

That finally rouses the two of them from their drinks and cards, the shorter one pulling his pistol from the concealed pouch on his hip as he advances, "Alright twerp, put down the phone and ge-" you take off, rounding the bend before he can raise his pistol and lead the two of them on an exhilarating chase through the streets until they notice the smoke creeping into the sky from their warehouse and abandon you to save what they can.

By the time the sun rises you've found and hit another two similar places, belonging to Water and Earth respectively, and acquired a box of Nost to send to a lab, just in case it's some kind Inspired creation rather than something more normal and hopefully get some hint as to whose making it.

It should also hopefully mean you get an explanation why you had to get this yourself rather than do the police's job for them, but that might be hoping for too much.

Regardless, you don't dare continue this during the day, too much of a risk, instead you've decided to have a talk with a certain someone scaring people in the woods, not even a "talk" about how you're a very busy woman and would really rather they left for greener pastures before you had to throw them in a cell. Ok, it might turn into that, but you've got a good feeling about this.

That good feeling doesn't die when you do an aerial flyover of the area the sightings have been most dense, but it does wilt a little at the ragged clearing in the woods and it shrinks a little bit more when you see the three vans parked by the side of the nearest road, each of them crewed by people who look a lot like the folks combing through the area with not insignificant quantities of weaponry and who you think might be members of the elements, but it's not dead.

Nonetheless, you've camouflaged yourself to resemble the sky above you so you should still have the element of surprise.

What would you like to do?

O-O-O-O

Sorry, this chapter is mostly set up, I promise the next one should be more interesting and that you will revisit the "take the fight to them" part of your vote last time.

Pick one of these options

[ ] Check out the recently created clearing, those trees didn't knock themselves down.

[ ] Those vans don't seem too well protected, take a quick peek inside of them while nobody's looking.

[ ] Have a quick chat with one of those guards, swipe whatever they're using to communicate, try to get some answers without being spotted.

[ ] Start breaking faces, these idiots will never know what hit them.
-[ ] strategy goes here.

[ ] Write in.

The decision comes easily, the most informative place, at least on the subject you're actually here for, will probably be the spot where it looks like there's been a fight.

You land silently in a nearby tree, shift your skin to match the bark and leaves around you, (even if you're alone at the moment that's no excuse to be lazy) and open your senses to the world.

The first thing you notice once you land are the rents in the ground, sure, the trees have been knocked over or severed at some point along the trunk, some clearly, most with huge ragged gashes. But those are almost pedestrian, not like the absolutely enormous three clawed footprints which tell you that Fire was here and reached his full, car eating bulk, and yet nothing here is burned, no, that's not quite right, there are a few blacked spots in the underbrush, but on the whole there's nothing to suggest Fire used anything close to the unholy blaze he needs to reach the upper limits of his crocodilian state.

In fact the upturned undergrowth seems covered in frost, and now that you're looking for it, there are patches of it all across the ground and in the trees, and if that was this super's main method of attack than it would explain why you haven't yet seen a trace of thick, amber-colored blood since you landed.

It would explain it, if, that is, you hadn't heard about this person he was fighting having a kind of cutting attack, and the fact that a solid quarter of the trees which have been were cut too deep and too cleanly for Wind's brand of whistling murder.

And despite all that, no amber blood, come to think of it no human blood either, which, all things considered, is the best news to come out of this exploration, the patrols are probably looking for ice-blade, not just their lair and whatever loot they might have found in their short career.

All in all, while you're not sure how it happened, it looks like these two met in the woods and while Fire's fire (ha) proved less than effective they couldn't manage to finish the job before the crime lord managed to complete his transformation and put this mystery person on the run and now, (though this is only a guess) bringing in his goons or maybe even another member of the five in order to finish this.

You quietly sigh, confirm once more that you're alone, and break into a loud groan, "I'm not getting the easy little conversation I wanted." It isn't a question, your voice is filled with resignation and the day has barely started.

You try to console yourself, this is going to be interesting if nothing else, at least you'll be able to tell Adamant all about it once- Oh, oh… right. You must be more tired than you thought. You shake off the old memories and start to consider where you go from here.

Preferably something which involves movement and action, because stewing in your own thoughts and trying not to think about the… thing. Sounds like a very unpleasant way to spend the day.

O-O-O-O-O


[ ] Follow any traces Ice-Pal made as they ran and try to get to them ahead of the hunting parties.
Your senses are keen and you're only one person, you're faster than any hunting party, if things go well you should be able to beat them there… assuming nothing goes wrong and that Ice-Pal isn't an aspiring supervillain.

[ ] Follow the hunting parties and jump them once they find Ice-Pal.
It won't get you there any faster than them but they won't beat you there and you might learn something really helpful in the process.

[ ] Start picking off members of the hunting parties as they search.
Riskier than the other options, they'll be more on their guard and fighting at least two of the Elements seems like it would be very unpleasant if they could find and catch you. On the other hand, if you can keep beating down their mooks and breaking their things you could deal the origination another rather devastating blow.

[ ] Look for more information somewhere else.
-[ ] Where are you looking?
This gives them more time to search, but might tell you something valuable.

[ ] Write In.

Despite yourself you smile, you love the city, you really do, but the nice thing about being away from the prying eyes of the public is that you get to really stretch the limits of your shape without making small children cry.

Your form unwinds into a quadrupedal, shelled thing with long, scurrying legs ending in wide soft pads and a trio of eye-dotted trunks which seem to never stop sniffing the air as you begin to scour the area around the clearing for any trace of the ice wielding super.

It takes a while and you're almost ready to call off the search when you find something, a bit of leather from what might be a loose jacket judging by the bite marks and the lack of blood. It's not much, but it gives you a scent to focus on (dirt, sweat, blood, a little bit of… mead maybe?, disinfectant and a smell which seem to match what you can detect from the Nost pills) now, granted, the helpful ones are by far the faintest, but they're at least distinct enough for you to find the next trance of it in a lock of hair, and then you find the slight trail of dying, frost marked leaves in the trees and a few damp spots along the ground.

The chase is surprising long, you have to give Ice-Pal this much, they at least could guess they'd be followed and took a rather winding route once they'd gotten a decent distance from the battlefield, and at a fast pace too if the fact footprints and frost only appear every dozen or two feet are anything to go by.

Eventually though, you find the end of the trail, a small makeshift shelter made of branches, the shoddily built structure stabilized by ice and mud and nestled between a few large, jagged mounds of rock. And after a quick adjustment to your ears you can smell and hear the person inside, awake and from the smell alone you can tell they're eating chips.

It is nice to get confirmation from the noise, though you wish it wasn't quite so loud,

Regardless, it's time to have a conversation. You 'fix' your shape. Then put some more focus on your powers of persuasion, turning a thing from man's nightmares to the kind of person who could star in a major movie, and then a good bit beyond that.

With that done you stand up, turn your hand reflective to make sure you've lept the uncanny valley, smile in satisfaction, walk up the little shelter held together by ice and mud uncaring of the sun's light, and open your mouth.

"Hello?" You call into the room, projecting as much friendliness and innocence as humanly possible in your voice before stepping backwards and waiting for them to spring out of the door, a blade of ice in hand.

The man blinks as the sun's rays hit him, illuminating his brown skin, unkempt black hair and tired eyes. He wears a long, heavy coat which looks ominously familiar to your eye with a car eating crocodile seized bite of it missing, revealing a loose white T-shirt underneath it, accompanied by a pair of blue jeans with far, far too many pockets sewn into them.

The things which really draw your eyes though are the enormous, surfboard-like weapon in his hand which nearly blinds you as its razor sharp ice blue edge sparkles in the sun's light as ice grows into armor across his clothes. "Who are you and how'd you find me?"

You slowly raise your hands and take another step back, letting a trace of fear slip into your smile to make him feel like he's in control. "Name's Chimera." You tell him, trying not to be too dispirited by the utter lack of recognition in his eyes. "What's yours?"

There's a long, awkward pause after that, "Ah, have you not picked a code name yet?" You ask, getting a quick shrug as the man still pointing the sword at you continues, "…Something like that, answer the second question, what are you doing here?"

"Trying to find you before Fire and his friends come over to finish whatever you two did last night." You quickly explain. "He's got a pretty big posse with him and I'm pretty sure he isn't pleased."

Ice-Pal laughs, his voice echoing out into the chatter of the wildernesses around you, "How's he going to find me way out here?"

You shrug, "I did, and he's got enough 'friends' to cover a lot of ground." You tilt your head curiously, making the next question seem like it just popped into your head rather than the absolute most important sentence of the conversation so far, "How'd you get on his bad side anyway? He normally doesn't leave the city for anything, the other four might jump his stuff if he did, so whatever happened it must have made him absolutely apoplectic."

He squints at you, a little bit perplexed for a moment before realization hits his face, "So that's why they said there were part of the five elements." He says, like he's having some private revelation, "I thought it was weird he only had all the fire blasts… and the croc form I suppose."

The sheer surprise in his voice forces you to take a moment to simply blink in shock. "Wait, have you been- are you new in town? The Five Elements have been around for more than half a decade by now."

The man- Ice-Pal, ('the man' is getting boring) suddenly gains a new fascination with the clouds above, refusing to meet your eyes. "Ummm, yeah, new in town." He says, the half-truth making even him wince with the blatancy of it.

Before you can press him he changes the subject again, gesturing wildly with the huge sword. "Anyway, you asked about how I got on his bad side?" He doesn't wait for an answer before continuing on. "I got into a brawl with a few guys who worked for him, beat them down with a staff made of ice, took everything in their pockets-" and that confirms he almost certainly doesn't know who you are either, what with the whole, 'robbery and assault' thing.

He continues, "-and kept on going, then their buddies heard about it, I had a few more encounters with his minions, and eventually this guy followed me as I was coming back here and, well, the only way you could call it a win would be if you're counting the coat." Ice-Pal finishes proudly, his armor evaporating for a moment to better show off the coat, a piece of clothing you're now pretty certain you last saw a month or two back on Fire's back.

"How- wait, never mind, doesn't matter, he's going to try to murder you the second he finds you and, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you're going to win that fight."

He stares at you, unconvinced. "Look, all I have to do is get in close before he turns into a big monster, easy peasy lemon squeezy. And that's if he finds me, you're the first person to find me since I… came out here."

"Maybe I'm just the first person to go looking," you respond, "The city has been going through some stuff."

His face is suddenly covered by a faceplate of ice, but before that you could see a bit of doubt enter his eyes. Finally, some progress.

After a long moment he sighs and, frustration at the world in every syllable speaks. "Fine, I'll pack what I've got, what's the plan after that?

Luckily you thought about this on the way here and open your mouth to explain, "Alright, here's the plan…"

O-O-O-O-O


Alright then, what's the plan?

[ ] Insert Plan here, I have faith whatever you come up with will be very clever, feel free to ask questions about anything you'd like if you want more clarity.

Also, thoughts on Ice-Pal (Real name not yet available)?