A Bloodstained Mantle

[alexthealright]

"Ok, you should all stay here where it's safer." You tell the hostages as your body shifts, growing slimmer and more nimble as hummingbird wings sprout from your back and spikes of bone almost eagerly shoot out of your hands to form wicked wrist blades with shining, razor sharp edges.

You take a deep breath, feel the world slow around you, and then you're gone, streaking forward almost like a missile as in only a little more than an instant you're already in range of the Doctor's armor and interrupting his unhinged rant with a gunshot fast stab into the suit's shoulder as you spy a distortion in the nearly transparent force field, opening a chink in the bot's armor for an instant.

It's artificial muscles screech as metal rips and tears for a moment before the force field remodulates itself and your blade slides off it.

Caught completely by surprise Doctor Destruction fumbles with the controls before his suit takes action for him, the jet pack's sudden activation sending him skyward as the cannon turns to focus on you.

"DIE!!" He screams through tinny speakers, the noise drowning out the roar of the jetpack.

The thunderous tri-cannon on the suit's arm roars to life as its force field fades and a half dozen bolts of light streak down at you as you rise to meet him, four of them narrowly evaded on wings beating so fast that even you can't count each beat, a fifth shot you dodge by a hair's breadth, the sixth and last blast flying past before detonating behind you.

In an instant you turn to meet it, bracing yourself as you continue flying straight towards Destruction, using the incredible force of the explosion to send you rocketing forward to circle around to catch him in the back as the bones in your arm and side begin to repair the tiny fractures they'd suffered from that glancing strike.

"JUST GIVE UP NOW YOU FOOLISH GIRL, I-"

You tune the words out as you notice his force field is sputtering, still recovering from the energy expended on the tri-cannon, if you can get him to shoot like that again and then capitalize on it…

You stick out your tongue as you circle him in the air, "Hey doc, whose design did you rip off to make this bucket of junk?"

He spins to face you, the childish insult drawing a predictable wave of energy bolts which hit nothing but thin air as you spin through them and land a devastating blow to the suit's chest as the weakened force field gives way with a pop, followed an instant later by the screech of bone on metal which exposes the iridescent light of the suit's reactor to open air.

For a single glorious moment the jet pack dies and the doctor screams in fright as he plummets, with you mirroring his fall until the suit compensates and levels out, leaving the doctor staring at you as the last of your injuries heal.

You wave, "Look, it's ok to admit that you're bad at fighting, there's no shame in it."

Doctor Destruction's scream of rage sounds like nails on a chalkboard magnified a thousand fold by the suit's speakers, only drowned out by the roar of his tri-cannon as he aims to tear you apart in a hailstorm of light.

"Ok I lied there's a little bit of shame in it." You quip as you twist and weave through the air, evading each and every stone shattering shot of the barrage, this one smaller than the last two to provide more power to the force field, and then counter attacking with a roundhouse kick edged by bone.

While you aim for his cockpit window the suit intervenes, blocking the blow with its handed arm and counter attacking once more as the three barrels on the tri-cannon reconfigure, almost merging entirely as the each barrel sparks in unison.

"NOW YOU FACE THE TRI-CANNON'S SECONDARY MODE FOOL! WITH IT I SHALL RIP-" Just then the tri-cannon blasts forward an enormous, concentrated, beam of purple light.

In a flash you ascend, wings beating furiously as you escape the worse of the blast, grid your teeth, and hold steady, your wings beating furiously to maintain your position as your body withstands the beam until it dies, leaving you with nothing more than a few fast fading bruises.

The instant the light dies you spring forward in a blur of sudden motion and bring your wrist blades down on Destruction's cockpit once more, only to be stymied as the suit shifts in the air with a burst from its jetpack to bring its tri-cannon to face you as your bone blades skid off its fully charged force field.

You dive through the blasts, waiting for the the suit's force field to fade from the strain of this new barrage and then slam a bladed foot directly into his reactor, sending him flying into the ground as his jetpack cuts out for the second time.

For a moment you consider diving after your foe, but then you have an idea and stop in your tracks as a smile breaks across your face, it's a gamble, but if it pays off you could end the fight right now, so once more your body, and more specifically your brain shifts back onto a more diplomatic footing, although you don't dare let those changes show on the outside of your body.

"Hey. Suit." You say, speaking directly to the armor rather than the man inside, "This fight hasn't been going very well for you, but I have a deal to offer you."

Doctor Destruction laughs, the sound magnified by his speakers into a boneshaking rumble. "YOU FOOL, THIS MACHINE OF MINE WILL TURN THE TIDE WITH EASE, SUIT, ATTACK!"

Despite his order the suit of power armor doesn't move, "Look, you can't win this fight, I've spent the last thirty seconds tearing you apart and nothing you've accomplished has managed to stick so far."

You gesture at the patches of skin where superficial bruises which had been spread all across your arms and chest have already faded into nothingness.

You continue, "But I think you understand all that, what I think you haven't considered, is what happens to your creator when I break you, that reactor doesn't look very stable, and what's more even if your reactor didn't burst I'm not sure if your boss live would through me taking you apart."

"SUIT! KILL HER NOW." Destruction screamed as his face to turned purple with rage, as he picks up his controller, frantically pressing every button on it in an attempt to force his machine to move. "I CREATED YOU. YOU OBEY ME!"

"On the other hand…" you continue, "If you just give up now I promise that your creator will be fine, put in prison, sure, but definitely alive." You look Doctor Destruction dead in the eye and give him a wide, shark-like smile, "I assume that you made your personal safety its first priority, same as your first squad of cheap murder robots?"

At that his face somehow turns an even darker shade of purple before the suit spits him out of his cockpit and he sails into the rocky ground, screaming all the while.

He stumbles to his feet, before turning back to his suit, opening his mouth to scream an obedience code, only to stop as the suit shuts down.

Then a tranquilizer dart which used to be your pinky finger sinks into his back and he flops to the ground before you wrap an arm around his waist and shoot back into the cramped halls of the Base, your body returning to it previous, agile form as you close in on the control room and fly over the melted slag which was once the control room's door.

Of every room that you've seen in this base, this is the first one to look like it belongs in the base of an Inspired Inventor built cannon designed to shoot energy beams at superpowered Kaiju, the room is brightly lit, a holographic display shows the entire city and everything around despite the dry blood all over the projector and a half enormous dozen screens sit in front of the two control consoles and show everything there is to know about the cannon itself.

And it's hovering in front of the control console that you find the Hacker Robot, a flipped trashcan of a machine covered in flashing lights with a dozen metallic tentacles speared into the console as sits in silence.

The machine is so completely absorbed in its duties that it doesn't even notice you until a blade of bone bisects it from behind and it falls to the ground with a pair of heavy clangs, but while the machine is destroyed the hacking doesn't seem to slow.

For a single irrational moment you consider destroying the computer's core to halt the attempt, after all, just because you have the doctor under control doesn't mean Slip or another robot doesn't also have access to the cannon was subverted.

Then you glance down at your palm, remember the code, and facepalm in embarrassment.

With the cannon deactivated and the crisis defused you set Doctor Destruction on the floor, pat him down for any hidden surprises, crush the box of tiny robot spiders and the other robot disguised as a phone, before then ripping off a few of the machine's tentacles and hogtying him.

You tap your earpiece for an update from Adamant, "How's taking apart that ripoff going old man?" You ask, cheer plain to hear in your voice.

For a moment all you hear is the tearing of metal and the sputtering, jet engine-like noise of the Massacre Man-Droid's plasma blades, then you hear a sudden snap and a moment later Adamant's voice is in your ears.

"Just fine loyal minion, I'm just about done with this thing," he coughs, and you brace yourself for the joke which always accompanies the sound but one never comes, instead he just continues speaking.

"I notice the idiot's suit is deactivated and you're nowhere to be found, is everything good on your end?"

You let just a pinch of well deserved pride into your tone as you answer, "Well I don't know, is capturing our mad scientist of the month and deactivating the cannon good or amazing?"

"Wait really-" more sounds of tearing metal come over the earpiece, until finally the noise ends with a single heavy smashing sounds, "Sorry about that, it went invisible for a little bit there, as I was saying, great job, let's make sure Slip isn't hanging around, help out a little bit here, then drop your new friend off at the jail, I'll grab his suit and what's left of the Massacre Droid and then we can head back to the house for that cake of yours.

And that's exactly what you do, unfortunately Slip is nowhere to be found, so after an hour or two of moving bodies the two of you will have to content yourselves with the capture of a supervillain who's technology had killed almost a dozen people before escalating into domestic terrorism and the attempted highjacking of a weapon which could have destroyed the entire city.

All in all you arrive back home back home with the warm glow of a job well done, a crisis averted, a day saved, and a small birthday party to return to.

"Did you see what I did to that suit? It was pretty great right?" You ask as you open up the refrigerator to finally enjoy your cake, only to receive no answer, you turn to Adamant and find him on his knees, using the chair next to him as a support.

In a flash you you're at his side, "What's wrong?" You ask as you pick him up, checking for an injury from his fight with the Massacre Droid.

Adamant grips onto your shoulder, his words slurring as he answers. "The gas, it was the gas."

Then his eyes close and he goes limp, unconscious but alive, for now.

You rush Adamant to the bed in the medical room of your house, sit in the chair next to his bed, and begin frantically calling STAR demanding someone qualified to help with whatever is wrong with him until finally your calls for help are answered in a flash of light.

When the light fades empty air has been replaced by a man dressed in a lab coat and carrying a box of medical supplies who freezes when he sees the blade of serrated bone an inch from his eye, "…Did someone not call ahead?"

You blush in embarrassment and sheath your wrist blades, replaying the last second in your head and realizing that you'd almost pounced on him, "Uh, no, they didn't, sorry about that." You step back, giving the man you almost killed a little bit more space, "What's your name?"

The doctor jumps on that, seemingly eager to move past his brush with death, "Ah, of course my name is Doctor Warren, pleasure to meet you Chimera!" He says, offering his hand with a shy smile.

You quickly shake his hand and step aside and wave him over to Adamant's bed, "Did someone tell you what the problem was?"

Doctor Warren eyes the crystals growing between Adamant's teeth with growing alarm, "I was told it was some kind of gas, but I've never seen anything like this before." He says, pulling open one of Adamant's eyes and shining a light inside, recoiling back as his face twists in disgust at whatever he sees.

"Do you have a sample of the gas which caused this?" He asks as he pulls on a set of gloves, takes a tiny hammer and a set of tweezers and breaks off a chunk of the crystal growing from Adamant's mouth, dropping it inside a glass vial which he then places in the box on his belt.

"No," you answer as you take your seat next to the bed, "It dissipated not long after it was released." You point to the box, "What does that do?"

At your questioning he explains, "It's a chemical analyzer, if someone in STAR or someone who's shared their data with us has encountered something like it before then we'll be able to diagnose it and move your friend to the facility best able to treat him."

Then the analyzer chimes and spits out a piece of paper which you quickly snap up and read aloud, "Blue-Gold G, Known incidents: New York STAR headquarters, thirty first of December, 1981." Doctor Warren looks up at you, his face steadily growing more and more pale with every word. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Just to be sure." You frown, "Of course, Blue-Gold G, Known incidents: New York STAR headquarters, thirty first of December, 1981."

You pause for a moment, dread bubbling in your gut, "How bad is it?"

Doctor Warren swallows, his mouth opening and closing as he tries to chose the right words when a weak and rasping voice interrupts him.

"It's bad." Adamant says, crystals in his throat scratching and breaking against each with every syllable as the ones around his teeth shatter. "Very bad." He slowly turns over to face Doctor Warren, "Doctor, considering the recent Yellowstone mess there has to be a long list of people who need your help and I doubt you have anything in that bag of yours that could help is situation, with that in mind I would greatly appreciate some privacy."

Doctor Warren nods grimly, "I'm sorry, I'll go now," he turns to you and inclines his head, "I'll be in touch if you need me." The moment the words leave his mouth another flash of light swallows him up before you can even begin to voice an objection.

You pause, gaping in horror for a moment, staring at the spot where the doctor used to be before rounding on Adamant as he finally manages to sit up, leaning against the bedside table.

"What are you doing, telling the doctor to go away like that, Do you want to- are you trying to d-" you scream at him, the words finally dying on your tongue as you try and fail to force the dreaded word past your lips.

"Do you know what Blue-Gold G is?" He asks, and once you shake your head he continues, "That makes sense, like the machine said it happened forty something years ago, you see…" He coughs again, little shards of shining blue crystal shooting from his mouth.

"Well, it's actually a very simple story, there was this group of supervillains, the name isn't important, who wanted to kill several leading superheroes, specifically a certain few, vary durable ones."

He coughs again, longer and harder, "So they found an Inspired Inventor who made this gas, Blue-Gold G to kill people… well, to kill people as tough as I am, take a good look at my eyes, tell me what you find in there."

You lean in close as your vision sharpens and you see with grim understanding what he meant when he said that this gas was meant to kill people as tough as him.

There is shining blue spreading beneath Adamant's eyes, growing almost imperceptibly slowly but growing nonetheless, but as your vision sharpens you notice the sheer depth of the crystals, and from how its growing along the optical nerve you can guess as to its eventual destination.

"Oh, so when it reaches the brain you're going to…" you ask, hoping for a different answer than the one you know is the truth.

"Probably die, yes, and if I'm remembering correctly any power used to reverse or slow the process is worse than useless, but let's not focus on that, I've still got an hour or two I think, and there are a few things we should be thinking about instead, the first is how Slip and Doctor Destruction got their hand on this gas, it was supposed to have been destroyed and it's original inventor is long dead, which leaves my other question…"

"What is it?" You ask.

He tries to grin, but it dies halfway to his eyes, the gemstones "Would you be willing to share some of that cake with me? I was really looking forward that."

Spoiler: Dice Rolls

(You switch to the Skirmisher power set (except lacking Elongation and takedown and putting that in Improved Critical) before the fight starts

Chimera's Initiative 17+19=36

Doctor Destruction's Initiative 9+4=13

Chimera makes a Power Attack: 26=hits Damage 12

Doctor Destruction rolls toughness:24=single degree failure (toughness degraded by 1)

Doctor Destruction makes an all out attack:24=hits

Chimera rolls toughness:Natural 20+8=single degree failure (toughness degraded by 1)

Chimera makes a power attack attack: 19+10=29=Critical Success

Doctor Destruction's toughness check:9+15=24=two degrees of failure (another -1 toughness and he's dazed for one round.

Doctor Destruction rolls attack: 14+6=20=a miss

Chimera makes a power attack:16+10=26=a hit

Doctor Destruction rolls toughness:10+14=24

Doctor Destruction makes an AoE attack

Chimera rolls dodge:10+14=24=success

Chimera rolls toughness:17+8=25=success

Chimera rolls power attack:6+10=16=hit

Doctor Destruction rolls toughness: 18+13=31=success

Doctor Destruction makes an all-out attack:10+11=21=miss

Chimera makes a power attack: 11+10=21=hits

Doctor Destruction rolls toughness:4+13=17=second degree failure

Chimera shifts to a more diplomatic allocation of points and makes a diplomatic appeal to the Suit.

Talking down the suit of armor: 18+10+4=32=success

Knocking out Doctor Destruction: Isn't worth a dice roll, and frankly neither is the hacking robot)

O-O-O-O-O


What questions would you like to ask Adamant in this hour you have with him? (Pick 10 questions and they will be answered to the best of his ability, if you like to save them then you can instead choose to keep them for now and spend them retroactively.)


What shape does your grief take?

[ ] Trepidation: Adamant had some big shoes to fill, and you're not his equal, not by a long shot, how are you meant to measure up to the best hero the city had ever seen?

[ ] A desire for vengeance: whoever did this to Adamant needs to… you're not sure what you're going to do to them, but it's not going to be pretty and you might regret it by the time

[ ] Me? Grieving? No I'm completely fine (you're not fine): You're really not supposed to mess with the certain parts of your brain for long periods, it might keep you mostly focused and stave off the depression but when something breaks though the haze… it's going to be bad.


Are you going to try to keep Adamant's death a secret for a while?

[ ] Yes: news of his death is going to turn the city into a chaotic mess, it's best to delay that until you can get better control of the situation, you could say that he's been requested to join a rapid response team and you could probably get STAR to back you up.

[ ] No: It might mean less chaos now but the secret can't hold forever, and when it breaks it might very well damage people's trust in you.


So, what did you think of the update?

 

[alexthealright]

Adamant's words startle a sobbing laugh out you before you agree with a skin deep smile and return on lightning fast wings to the fridge, finding it left half open in all the commotion of… this, it's amazing how quickly your whole world can change.

With a sigh you pull the cake out the fridge, grab some plates, and walk back into the medical room to watch your… to watch your mentor die.

Adamant swallows another cough as you return, "It's funny, I've looking forward to this day for a such-" another fierce, hacking cough tears through his body, sending a cascade of shards into his arm as he covers his mouth.

He brushes the shattered crystals off his skin as you begin to cut the cake with a razor sharp claw.

It takes him a moment, but after a moment he continues speaking, "I actually told Slip, 'I'm going to go back home and eat Chimera's birthday cake if it's the last thing I do'" he laughs, and you can hear the crystals growing again in his throat as his voice becomes raspier and raspier. "Sorry, I'm really bringing down the mood aren't I."

"It's fine," You tell him, "I'm not sure the mood can get any worse anyway, here's your plate."

Adamant takes the plate gently offered to him, picks it up with his bare hands and takes a messy bite out of the slice, frosting covering his face, "Damn, that's good, tell the chef I said that please."

"I will." You say, "Um, Adamant, has anything like this happened before? You know, like an enemy suddenly getting their hands on some weapon that could have… done this?"

Adamant chuckles, the motion sending a small cloud of blue dust into the air, "I haven't dealt with this specifically before, I've met a few people who've changed their minds suddenly and sometimes I have to fight someone who can give me a real struggle, but-" another cough tears through his body. "But I can't think of anything all that weird…" he pauses, "Wait, there was this assassin five years back, that guy quite his old job and then just came in out of the blue, saying that he'd been offered-" another coughing fit cuts him off.

"Where was I… Oh right, he was offered, 'Enough money for my own private island', to quote the man word for word, at the time I was pretty sure it was Wind offering more money than she had to get me out of her hair but maybe someone else is involved, if I remember correctly his name was Solar-Flare, unfortunately he's in the Los Angeles Superhuman jail right now, and I'm not sure the situation is going to stable enough for you to leave the city for a while, you might be able to get a video call him with him though."

You nod, filling the information away in your mind and then making a note on your phone to call somebody once you have the time to arrange that conversation, can't be too careful about making sure there isn't a laps in your memory.

That answered you move onto your next question, "How do you think everyone is going to react to… to this?"

Adamant sighs, thinking for a moment before responding carefully, "STAR won't be able to help you for a while, they'll be too busy filling in the gaps left in our ranks after the Yellowstone mess to provide much here for a good few months." Your face turns stony as he says those words, keeping the anger they inspire carefully tucked away, Adamant doesn't seem to notice, continuing his analysis.

"I don't think the Coven will do much out of the ordinary for a while, the younger generation is more ambitious but Carver and Viscous are… content, that and they understand that pressing things now might bring a STAR Hammer Team down on their heads, and since the heh, the Massacre Men know that you could kick both their buts they're not going to do much out of the ordinary anyway, no, the real problem is Wind and the rest of the Five Elements."

You sigh, "Yeah I figured, any advice?"

"I was getting to that, first of all there's the obvious, most of their supers hate at least one of their peers so they're not all going to be hanging out together, especially with me out of the picture, I expect the internal maneuvering will start almost immediately after news of my death and won't end until Wind gets some wins under her belt and manages to force them to work together, do not let that happen, beyond that-" Another cough, this one even worse than the last.

"Be careful, I know this is going to be difficult but you're going to do great, just, be smarter than I was." He finally says through the crystals forming once more in his mouth.

The conversation feels like it lasts a lifetime, winding through reminiscences of better times, aching grief, and all the desperate questions that fill your mind as your mentor's eyes slowly turn blue and those same crystals crawl out of his left ear to form a set of odd, branching horns.

The moment arrives without fanfare, after one last horrible coughing fit Adamant simply lays down and closes his now useless, blinded, blue filled eyes, "I'm sorry Chimera, I think this is the end."

You're right next to him in an instant, cradling his hand, "I'm here." You say, resisting the urge to cry with all your might.

"Thank you." He says, "For being here, and for being in my life, you've made these last two years of my life immeasurably better."

Finally the dam breaks and you begin to sob, "I'm so sorry I messed up like that, I should've been able to… to…" Adamant cuts you off, placing a hand on your shoulder and staring blindly up in your general direction, "This isn't your fault, I could have tried to catch the grenade, I could have tried to knock it away, I could have grabbed the launcher in the base once I saw Slip using it, I didn't, this was on me and don't ever let anyone tell you different."

Your tears slow for a moment, "I'll find the people who did this, who gave Slip that gas and Destruction all his new equipment, and I'll bring them to justice." You promise, your voice raw and filled with more rage and grief than you can ever remember experiencing.

Adamant smiles through the crystals growing again beneath his teeth, "Just be careful kiddo, and remember, I am so so proud of you."

Then, finally, he goes limp, the life fading from his eyes, the moment gone by so quickly it takes you a moment to realize he's dead.

The realization brings the tears back, stronger than ever, you sit there for almost an hour before you finally force yourself to stand and wipe the tears from your eyes.

Right now, more than anything in the world you want to curl up into a ball but that's not going to go anywhere useful, if you're going to bring Adamant's murders to justice you need to move fast.

Standing up on shaky legs you set aside the half eaten cake and carefully pull the blanket over his head and leave the room, you'll… you can't deal with that right now.

As you walk out the door you force your flesh to remove all evidence of your grief from your face and consider your next move.

Firstly, you need to know who Doctor Destruction's and Slip's benefactor is, those two can't have been acting alone, they didn't have the money to buy that stuff and they didn't have the connections meet with the people who sell it.

Secondly, you need to know what happened to Slip, why he decided that it would be prudent to help highjack the city-defending super-cannon and start blasting people with a hyper lethal kind of Inspired gas weapon.

With both these in mind there is only one thing to do, you need to talk to Doctor Destructi-

Your phone rings, interrupting you mid-decision, a quick glance tells you the name of the caller, Police Commissioner Caddel it is… it was mostly Adamant's job to deal with him.

In an instant the phone phone is at your ear and the call has been received, "Hello, Chimera speaking, what can I do for you?"

The perpetually nervous voice of Francis Caddel answers your question quickly, "Oh, uh, yes miss, uh, Chimera, sorry to bother you again after such a short time, I tried to call Adamant but I think his phone was broken again? Anyway I called to ask you two to let you know that we've, you know, pinned down the precise location of uh, Destruction's secret hideout, it only took this long because of the confusion from all of, well you know, the flairs and jet packs and stuff, anyway, again, sorry to bother you, but I was going to ask if you and Adamant would be willing to take a crack at it maybe?"

"Sure" you tell him, "I'll take a look at it in a few hours, is Destruction still safely in custody?"

"Oh, um, ah, yes of course, he's ranting and raving of course but my men can, uh, right, my men can handle some, uh, admittedly ghastly death threats." You smile in relief at his answer. "Thank you Commissioner, I'll starting looking into all that now."


O-O-O-O-O

[ ] Interrogate Doctor Destruction

[ ] Investigate Doctor Destruction's Hideout


You have gained the Thirst For Vengeance complication (somewhat self explanatory and to be added tomorrow when I'm not this tired)

 

[alexthealright]

It only takes a moment to decide, Destruction isn't going to be escaping any time soon but that base might well be scrubbed of evidence by Slip or any other accomplices if you take your time.

With that in mind you shoot into the air like a hawk on feathered wings filled with color and begin souring towards the base with utterly superhuman speed, it takes only a brief few minutes before you arrive, landing on the roof of the building it lays beneath with a gentle thud as your wings are reabsorbed into your back.

Although you wouldn't admit to anyone you're actually somewhat surprised at the location, you expected him to have done the sensible thing and found a warehouse out in the middle of nowhere with an owner who wouldn't ask too many questions.

Neither you nor Adamant had ever guessed he had been living in some old secret lair hidden underneath a hotel, especially one right in the middle of downtown.

If you weren't occupied with a much more important mystery you'd be most curious about how he managed to keep it a secret for so long and how why he just threw it away like this, especially since his exit plan involved blowing a big hole in the parking lot and shooting into the sky in his power armor.

On second thought maybe you shouldn't have ungrown your wings before you landed, it's kinda annoying to regrow them all over again before leaping into the pit and landing gently with a single flap of your wings, dropping into a crouch as you wait for the inevitable assault.

And Wait.

And Wait.

And uh, wait some more…

Eventually, after a longer period than you'll ever admit you realize that no one is coming to fight you and stop to take a more thorough look at your surroundings.

The room you've landed in is dry and dim and cold, its walls made of metal and its dimensions forming a wide half sphere which branches out into a dozen narrow tunnels, a series of sonic pulses showing you the shape of where they lead.

Once more you pull the wings into your back, they'll be awkward to maneuver in these tunnels and you're not out of the woods just yet.

Your ears sharpen and your footsteps soften as you wander the tunnels beneath the dim and flickering lights which hang overhead, sending intermittent sound waves down your path and stepping around plates rigged to activate the crude blade traps that seem to infest this place.

Finally you arrive in the largest room you could hear, and are happily surprised that your first guess was correct, this is the place where the big, central computer so common in these bases is located, whoever built it had been following a proper, traditional design, with an enormous pillar which stretched from the floor to the ceiling right in the center of the room with a computer screen and keyboard in its center.

The rest of the room was filled with a concentric ring of metal tables bolted into the floor, most of them covered in robot parts and empty fast food boxes which you leap over to land silently in front of the terminal, already attempting to access it the instant after you land.

Doctor Destruction, or perhaps the lair's original designer, had rigged up this computer with a pretty effective gauntlet of authentication, it needed an eye scan, a facial scan, and a fingerprint.

Unfortunately for him… well you're a shapeshifter, it honestly ends up rather anticlimactic and a moment later you're reading the Doctor's notes while wearing his face, this would be more helpful if he was any good at note taking in anything other than his robot making and a few voice recorded rants which promise incredible violence to a few of his former coworkers.

You make a note as you search for more immediately useful information to check underneath the park that he mentioned he would hide a body under, you'd never actually found Martin's body and it would be good to finally give his family some closure.

Finally, after a few minutes of searching you find a few, very recent notes, none more than a month old.

-Found new supplier, Slip finally accepted that job offer of mine, knows people.

That catches your interest, but nowhere near as much as the next note.

-After so long I finally have Madhouse sourced parts, P's vendetta is very useful.

You almost gasp as you read the words, your worst fears confirmed, The Madhouse was a group of infamous arms dealers, Inspired ones, with money and stockpiled weapons from half a century of dealings with every group imaginable.

Their services would certainly explain his access to the parts he'd used, and if anyone could have made more Blue-Gold G, it would be them, although you've never heard of them using or selling it, not even when Worldwalker and The Magos smashed a third of their pocket dimension a year and a half ago and dragged a quarter of the board to The Hague.

They also hadn't given it to any of the assassins they'd sent after the two of them, if they had they might amounted to more than a dozen embarrassing videos of very dangerous people crumpling on contact with the strongest and debatably third strongest superheroes alive.

Which brings you to another question, who the fuck is "P"? You can't recall anyone with that name, or even someone with that initial who has a problem with you and Adamant, was still free/alive, and could have the connections necessary to contact the Madhouse

Which brings you to the third and final relevant note, this one just 3 days old.

-Slip's shift in perspective pleasant, not sure where he got the grenades from or why they matter, will see about torturing it out of him once operation successful.

It's as you're considering this last note that you hear a distant clang of boots landing on a metal floor, silently you find a corner to lurk in as the footsteps slowly come closer and closer until a woman in what appeared to be a business suit and a domino mask, she carried a briefcase which, once she scanned the room for hidden dangers and missed you, she opened it revealing it to be full of explosives.

As she lays the first of them on one of the beams holding up the dome you emerge from hiding, "Hello, would you mind telling me what you're doing down here?" You ask, false politeness filling your voice as your body remakes itself for war.

The women laughs nervously as you step in front of the tunnels he came in through, "Ah, yes, I… did not expect you to show up so soon, I don't suppose you'd be willing to go back out there so I can finish setting these and then I can blow them all when-" as Mary continues to prattle on you- wait, Mary?

It hits you like a thunderbolt, you can remember her, flashes and impressions but memories nonetheless, her name is Mary, her favorite food is apple pie with vanilla ice cream, she's faster than normal human can comprehend and still tough enough to eat gunshots, and she was working with the people who killed Adamant.

She cuts herself off mid sentence, eyeing the murder in your gaze with trepidation.

"…Alright then, I suppose we're doing this," she gulps, muttering one last under your breath before you come to blows.

"…God, some people take things so personally."

Spoiler: Dice Rolls

Dice Rolls

1: Noticing The Newcomer: 28 (Opposed Roll: 22)

Hiding in a Corner: 32 (opposed roll: 18)

O-O-O-O-O


[ ] Talk it out (Justice will not be denied)

[ ] Don't hurt her too badly
-[ ] Combat Plan:

[ ] Hold Nothing Back, Thrash her.
-[ ] Combat Plan:


Sorry for the update being late again.

 

[alexthealright]

Needles of bone jut from your wrist, replacements ready beneath your skin as you lunge forward, ready to bring this saboteur down, then Mary explodes into motion and the sight of her boot fills your vision.

Pain explodes through your skull as her foot slams into your head and sends you flying into the wall behind you, bending the dome itself with the force of your impact, even as her boot explodes, showering you with leather before she leaps away, kicking the other shoe off as she lands.

"Look, I'm sorry about this random hero lady but we need you both out of the-" she begins, only to be interrupted as you lunge towards her again and send a jab right for her stomach which misses by a hair's breath and cuts a thin line across the suit.

"Yikes! As I said, very, very sorry about this." She repeats before launching into a hailstorm of blows, her apologetic words ruined by the casual tone.

But your flesh has been hardened and your rage gives you clarity, you've weathered blows like this before and without the power of the flying kick which opened this fight, this barrage is little different from all the rest, just another obstacle for you to beat your way through.

All you can think about right now is squeezing out every single drop of knowledge out of this woman as you can, she knows something about Adamant's killers, you just know she does, she must, why else would she be here with a briefcase of bombs?

Another punch slams into your healing head and you barely notice it as you shove a needle thin wrist blade through that suit of hers into a nerve cluster in her chest, twisting your wrist to snap it off and leaving it stuck in her chest as she gasps in pain and leaps backwards, trying to pull it out and failing each time as the pain grows too intense.

"Holy- that," she wheezes, "That really hurt." She says reproachfully, even as she begins to circle you, "What did I-" she asks before recognition dawns in her eyes "Oh, oh right, sorry I forgot about that." She must be the world's best actress, because in that moment she looks exactly like you do when you forget something important, that mix of shame, embarrassment, and anger at yourself is intensely familiar.

Your only response is a snarl as you dash forward with inhuman speed, and like that the battle resumes, another powerful kick sends you into a table despite your raised arm but in an instant you're back on your feet and back on the attack as she rips another table from the floor and hurls it at you with a roar of effort.

"Tank this you crazy shapeshifter lady." She screams right before you chop it in half with a snarl and slam through the severed pieces before colliding with her mid-air and ramming another needle thin wrist blade into her leg as she raises to block your stab.

The two of you slam into another table as you land, spilling parts and boxes of fast food everywhere around you as it tilts with the impact, Mary righting herself a second before you and sending you flying with a running kick as you try to rise.

This time you rise almost instantly, the newborn shards of pain spread through your mending ribcage fighting you every step of the way as you force yourself to stand, facing your opponent with both arms raised defensively as once more as your foe races to met you.

But while you feel like you've been stepped on by a Kaiju, the beautiful truth is that you're healing and Mary isn't, while your skull and ribcage has pushed itself back together, the needles have taken their toll in the form of shallow breath, limping footsteps, and pools of blood sinking into her suit.

And as Mary charges towards you those injuries finally extract your price, a stumble halfway through a running leap letting you dive down as she slams into the wall where you stood a moment ago, the dome buckles with the sheer force of the impact, metal screeching as the wall gives way and she crashes into the room behind it, smashing through the delicate processors on the other side.

It's only a second later you realize what those processors were linked up to as the computer you'd been reading from begins to sputter before overloading in a flash of sparks and going dark an instant later.

Groaning in pain, Mary stands, "Right, glad I remembered where that was, I was like, almost certain I'd forgotten where it actually was once I mid air." Then she turns to you and extends her hands, smiling with satisfaction, like she's just beaten you utterly. "Anyway, you win, I surrender."

O-O-O-O-O

Pick 5 questions to ask Mary.

[ ] Plan Name
-[ ] Question 1
-[ ] Question 2
-[ ] Question 3
-[ ] Question 4
-[ ] Question 5


Sorry for the late update and it's brevity but I had some things distracting me this week and quite frankly this fight just didn't last too long before some important choices needed to be made.

 

[alexthealright]

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.

Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & Games

Discord is great for playing games and chilling with friends, or even building a worldwide community. Customize your own space to talk, play, and hang out.

discord.gg

 

[alexthealright]

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

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.

 

[alexthealright]

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,

 

[alexthealright]

Mary, hero with three dozen false faces, shifted uncomfortably in the maximum security cell she sat inside, her body was weighted down with almost uncountable number of chains which themselves were bolted to the wall which wouldn't budge no matter how hard she pulled.

In hindsight her plan hadn't worked fantastically, she hadn't known that Chimera could knock her out like that… although, she thought that might explain why her thoughts were so muddy during their talk.

It was unfortunate, clever people were always so much harder to kill, and to make matters worse she'd been thrown in here, which Mary thought, was very unfair, did nobody understand that some people had to die for a better world? Sure, it wasn't great that they had to die, but at the end of day, well, it was necessary, nothing for it.

She shrugged, dismissing the feeling and continued shifting around in her restraints, she really wasn't looking forward to her one phone call.

The boss really wasn't going to be happy, they'd lost a valuable pawn, she was in jail and would have to escape somehow, and to make matters worse she wasn't even sure if Adamant was actually dead, sure, the boss has said it would work, but Adamant was a titan on the local stage, heck, he was even scary on the national one, and to top it off he'd been an unknowing thorn in their side for…… for as long as Mary had been a member of the group.

All in all, things would have gone much better if she'd just brought her weapon and butchered Chimera in the tunnels, nosy investigators and possible reopened cold cases be damned.

"'Mary', we're coming to give your phone call, make no sudden moves."

And that was another problem, how the heck had Chimera known her real name? She barely used it anymore, certainly not when… actually, she couldn't remember the last time she'd used it outside of interacting with one of her colleagues.

As she was pondering this her cell door opened and Mary did her best to comply with the request as the phone was placed between her shoulder and head as her chin tapped a phone number into the screen with practiced precision.

"It's me," she says, trying her best to keep her carefree tone intact as her boss waited for her to deliver the news. "Things didn't go great."

She winced as the boss responded, trying not to pay attention to how much the cutting words, well, cut. "Ok, a little worse than not great, I admit I made a mistake, a couple of mistakes, and, boss, I am very sorry for that and will make it up you as soon as possible."

Then she smiled as the boss asked the most important question, "Yeah, server is broken, kicked right through it myself, secrets are safe, all of that is good… I just got caught like three seconds after that."

The boss's answer killed any trace of a smile on her face, "Ok, I'm sorry, I messed up."

That mollified them, at least enough that their final question was delivered in only a slightly mocking tone.

Mary smiled sheepishly, intensely thankful the boss couldn't see it, "Uh, yeah, I was hoping you'd have a plan." She said shaking a leg and wincing as the clattering noise echoed around the room.

The boss sighed, and said a single word, one which reminded her of something so blindingly obvious she almost couldn't believe she'd forgotten. Wait, how did I forget it? It was literally always there, I used did it just last-

She face palmed, or more accurately she tried to, the chains around her arms prevented her from moving that much, "Damn it, I completely forgot about that." At least that solved the question of how she'd escape, although it would mean she'd have to visit that old crone and change her face and such around again.

The phone chattered again and she sighed, "Fine, I'll get out when you want me to, you'll be dropping this phone number, right?"

The boss answered and she sighed, "Right, also that, let me know when exactly you want me out, also where to go once that happens, what's the plan for that?" She asked, suspecting she knew the answer.

Unfortunately, she did, even more unfortunately the boss wasn't swayed by her complaints, not even the really good points.

Finally she groaned and accepted the inevitable, "Fine, oh, by the way, would you be willing to hook me up with a lawyer?"

Her boss hung up on her.


O-O-O-O-O

Sorry everyone, Chapter 12 isn't finished yet, consider this my apology for that fact.

 

[alexthealright]

The day of the funeral is as bright and sunny as can be, the sun shining down on the enormous crowd all around you as you glare up at it. Utter hate for its cheer hidden behind a mask of stoicism.

You've never particularly enjoyed suits, but today you're wearing the finest one you own as you wait for your turn to speak

First came Adamant's brother, a man you'd met twice who had never gotten involved with his Brother's job, from what you remembered he worked as an electrician. Then came a slew of people who Adamant had helped over the years, a man who he'd pulled out a car crash ten years ago, a girl who he'd talked down from the edge of a roof, the sister of a man who was killed by Massacre Man.

Then came the Commissioner, who had forced down his stutter to talk about his deep respect for Adamant's experience, his bravery, and his cool head. Next up came the mayor, who got dangerously close to turning his words of respect into a campaign speech before you'd caught his eye and stared him into a quick exit off the stand.

Then, finally, comes the person who makes your blood boil the most. Her name is Fireball and she was a friend of Adamant's, or perhaps a former student. You've only met her four times, right now she's here to both give her respects and as a representative for STAR. Who will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Apparently helping you with a lengthy investigation just isn't in the cards right now.

"Adamant was many things, a brother, a friend, a comrade in arms, a respected mentor and a brave leader. He taught me so much about my job I don't think I'd still be alive right now if I'd never met him.

He brightened the lives of everyone who crossed his path, saving lives and protecting the innocent wherever he went, from here to the battle over Yellowstone just three four days ago. I truly, dearly, hope that his killers are brought to justice and-" she turns to look at you as she says this, "I would like to say that I am very sorry I wasn't there to help."

Then. Finally. It's your turn to speak, "Adamant was… he held out a hand and helped me get my footing when I stumbled out of that crate. I… I have no idea where I would be if he hadn't helped me." You pause, fighting back the tears for a moment before you concede defeat and simply seal your tear ducts shut.

"I am so sorry." You whisper to yourself. Then, louder, "I might not have been able to save him, but I promise that I'm going to pick up right where he left off, and I am going to find the people who did this to him."

With that your speech is over and the rest of the ceremony passes by in a haze until it finally comes time to lower Adamant's closed casket into the ground. You had to chop dozens of crystalline branches off his body to make it fit inside the coffin.

With a bitter sigh you banish the memory and simple watch it lower in the ground. Your tear ducks finally bursting open as you stand there, wishing that things had gone better, that your mentor was still here with you today, that the sky would have the common decency to be cloudy and rainy and sad.

You're going to find Slip and his compatriots and when you do they won't be able to fit-

They're not going to be able hurt anyone ever again. That's definitely what you were about to think.

A few minutes later Fireball seeks you out in a moment in between well wishers and leads you to a nearby rooftop before she speaks. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, I want to help in any way I can." She says. Prompting a snort from you. "Yeah, everything, except actually helping me."

She bristles. "That's not fair and you know it, everywhere is on fire right now. If the Horsemen and their associates hadn't allied with the Blood Drop Alchemist or whatever he's calling himself and started expanding into Shadow territory after sacking a village of mice people and taking half the population hostage I'd be right here with you."

You nod. "Of course, it's just kinda strange that you say that you'll help in any way you can when whenever I ask if you can do a thing you say no, precognitive support? Nothing. Assistance from superhuman investigators? Nope. An escort for the superhuman saboteur I have stuck in my city's sad little jail? Say it with me now… nothing! So don't give me that dumb spiel. It's a lie."

Fireball steps back, her face flashing with hurt and anger. "Just because- look. There are certain constraints on our ability to provide support but we've not abandoned-"

"Alright then." You interject, "When you're ready to back that up then let me know. Until then I don't think we've got anything more to say."

She sighs as you begin to walk away. "You know. You remind me a lot of him. Just… younger I guess."

You turn your head all the way around like an owl, taking petty pride in the flash of disgust which passes over her face.

"Thanks." You tell her, genuinely unsure if it was meant to be a compliment or insult coming from her, you have more important things to do. That thought rings through your mind as you leap from the roof and start making your way towards Slip's old house.

Time to get some answers.

O-O-O-O

Slip's old house was not the kind of place you'd have imagined he would live, you'd always pictured some sort of beachfront penthouse that guzzled money like an alcoholic bear in a brewery.

Instead Slip's house seems… well it's not a terrible place. But it's solidly middle class. Bought three years ago by one Dan Richter. AKA Slip, the man who killed your boss.

And now it's your job to sort through the man's house to see if he missed anything as he left for whatever reason he had for leaving.

The first word that springs to mind as you enter is ransacked, the whole place looks like someone badly wanted something hidden inside and didn't really care about making it look like nothing had happened.

Bookshelves have been stripped. Tables overturned. The couch has been dragged into the center of the room and dismantled, its cushions slashed open and their feathered insides spilled across the ground, the safe room hands open. The camera feed completely and unspeakably wreaked.

Finally a quick sonic pulse and a sniff of your sharpened nose reveal a perplexing riddle.

There are several hollow cavities throughout the house, each of them wholly airtight such that you'd need to be able to phase through walls to reach enter them without taking a hammer to the place, and yet each and every one of them had been ransacked in much the same manner as everything else in this house, you also can't smell anyone in here other than Slip.

But what the heck would Slip be doing ransacking his own home?

O-O-O-O

What did the person who sacked this place miss?

[ ] An old diary hidden in a pipe in the basement.

[ ] A backup surveillance system set up behind a wall which shows the events of the last two weeks.

[ ] A printed picture of a very important offer

 

[alexthealright]

Your search is lengthy and exhaustive as you navigate the house, a part of your mind cataloging the incredible damage even as you send fourth continuous pulses of sonic energy to map the entire building.

First you check the kitchen, dancing through the knives and berries strewn across the floor after a careless step stains the bottom of your foot with blueberry juice. Sighing you hop and skip from safe spot to safe spot until you arrive in front of the sink and turn the handle, releasing nothing from the faucet and instead unleashing a deluge from the cabinet beneath the sink, the pipes were broken, cleanly severed as if Slip had utilized the most destructive aspects of his power to destroy it.

You groan in disappointment as you shed the offending skin and resume your search, you range from the depths of the basement and torn walls to the open safe room and its shattered surveillance system. You scrounge through the shredded dog bed which lays scattered across the living room and the savaged branches of the tree in the back yard and the messily unearthed roots beneath it.

Speaking frankly the fact it's all already been searched makes the whole process absolutely miserable, the sheer mess complicates absolutely everything and even that pales before the soul crushing disappointment you feel when a clearly important box or cavity is discovered and found utterly empty as the traps protecting the thief's stolen spoils spring into action.

Ok, the last bit of that only happened twice when you failed to catch a cunningly disguised shotgun when you weren't looking out for it and then again much later when some sort of spider web looking thread caught fire in an instant, but all together it's really not too bad.

The search drags on for hours as you dutifully catalogued every sight and every sound and every smell in that house until finally, finally. You find something they missed.

Sitting behind a bare wall is yet another hollow cavity which holds something incredibly useful. A backup security system for the house, one which still has recordings of recent events. It only takes you a moment to punch them in, and moment more to realize that this is a record of the previous two weeks, meaning it'll take a while to get through.

After a moment of thought you conclude that once the search is over you should probably watch this somewhere more secure than a house which was most likely enemy territory a few days ago, heck it might even still be being watched.

After one final search to ensure you've not missed anything you leave the house in short order, feathered wingbeats bringing you back to your mansion, well, not just your mansion exactly, Ada- oh. It really is your mansion now isn't it? Well, it is for now anyways, logically speaking you're probably going to die at someone's hand in the next few months, maybe a year if you're-

Refusing to dwell on those thoughts you march into your room, grab the disposable laptop in case this recording has some annoying surprise on it, and sit down to watch them… right before you get a call about a house fire that's gotten out of control, then catching some guy robbing a store, then getting a couple to the hospital after a nasty car crash, and on and on it goes.

All in all, a pretty typical day. But you can tell it won't last, the entire city is holding its breath. Waiting to see who would be the first to break the peace, who would take the first swing and reveal their hand, who would strike and expose themselves to counterblow.

The day passes in a blur as the weight of two people settles squarely on your shoulders. It takes you days of watching at many times its normal speed between your harried efforts to hold back the tidal wave of action which has almost wholly subsumed your life before you finally manage to ensure you've missed absolutely nothing and compile your thousands and thousands (ok not actually that many but still a lot) of notes into your diary so you don't have to keep track of not-technically-thousands-of-notes since you absolutely can't rely on your own absolutely terrible memory.

The tape stretches back two whole weeks, starting with what you can only assume to be Slip's status quo. Literally jumping at shadows and loud noises while he keeps up with a busy career of pretending to make money legally alongside his very cute dog for whom you brutally crush your affection… well, you try. It's a very cute dog.

His life went chugging on until a bit more than a week ago when he seems to make some grand decision. He pulled a little slip of paper out from under his bed, steeled his nerves, and makes a short phone call to an unknown person. "Hello… yeah this is Slip… yeah I'm reconsidering… yes I am certainly interested. Is your new place ready tonight?… Fantastic I'll be there." With that he gave his dog enough food and water for several days, killed the surveillance system for several minutes and once the cameras reactivated he geared up to go an adventure for the ages.

First he put Noodle (his dog) in his bedroom despite his vocal protest and set up a little toddler wall at the top and bottom of the stairs to the basement, then he pulled an old beaten up box with a danger warning out from a false floor in the basement and carefully sorted through a few makeshift explosives before finally setting three proper grenades on the floor in front of him and carefully attaching them to the belt around his waist.

Next he pulls a small violin case out from inside a cavity in the wall and opens it to reveal a makeshift, sparking, inspired gun. The weapon looks strange but simple and judging by its relatively good condition relatively easy to repair. It looks like a sort of ray gun with two gently glowing rods of gold-ish metal serving as the barrels and a vast array of flashing buttons around the… handle? Is that the word?

You shrug, dismissing the question as you continue writing in your memory diary, letting yourself relax for the first time in several weeks to the sound of pen on paper as you continue charting out Slip's last two weeks in that house.

He taps a few buttons and nods at the accompanying hum it produces before he flicks it off and stows it away in a concealed holster before he stores both the box and the violin case back where they should be, hides them again, lets Noodle out of his prison and plays with the snuggly fluff ball as he talks to him. "It's going to be great Noodle." He tells him as the pair play tug of war. "I'm going to get a new job! Just think of it, a better laundry service that doesn't charge an arm and a leg, backup if I get in over my head. And best of all…"

He whispers his next words into the dog's ear but after a lot of rewatches and amateur lip reading you're pretty sure he says, "…And best of all I'll be so much better as a thief if I'm not so scared all the time."

With that he boops the dog on the nose and continues playing with the dog until the sun goes down and he gets in his aging car, leaving for thirteen long hours as Noodle waits at the door.

When Slip returns to the house he does not arrive in the car he left in, instead pulling into the driveway in an entirely separate and significantly nicer vehicle than his previous ride. His personal appearance absolutely does not reflect this change.

His eyes are baggy, his hair disheveled, his grenades are missing, his clothes ragged and burned in places, revealing the fact that his dual barreled pistol is missing from its holster.

He stumbled to the door and proceeded to flip through what seemed like every single key on his keychain before finally opening the door to be enthusiastically pounced upon by Noodle and response he kicked the poor dog in the face. "Back you stupid mutt." He snarled in a tone filled with absolutely none of the love he'd displayed before, following the words up with a barrage of skillful kicks to the head that sent the poor dog sprawling before he dragged the adorable fluff ball out the door by its leg as it laid there stunned.

"Ah, a bit of quiet." Slip declared. "Fantastic." With that he set abound ransacking his own house… in the least efficient way possible. It seemed like he'd never actually been inside his own house before, what had previously been an open book to his eyes seemed to vex him endlessly. Hidden compartments he'd effortlessly, casually found before now seemed to be almost impossible to locate. Leaving him to stubbornly drag a hand through the wall searching for secret compartments.

"Stupid paranoid welp." He muttered to himself, ignoring Noodle's whining and pawing at the door. "Why couldn't the fool have just left… ah of course." With that he strolled into a kitchen and yanked open a drawer, grabbed a knife and began walking towards the door, only to freeze for a long, long minute with his hand on the nob, his body struggling against some invisible force.

The knife dropped from his hand and after a moment Slip… or perhaps the thing wearing his skin, turned around and restarted the process of ransacking the house, starting with a walk up to Slip's safe room and actives the surveillance system to check the thief's actions in the previous few days, noting the minute long blackout with a loud curse before, it's purpose fulfilled, he smashed the system with a chair.

With that done he used the knowledge from the system to pick out compartments and hidden places systematic fashion until he ran out. Then he continued simply ransacking the house in brutal fashion. Until finally he pulled a diary out of a pipe in the basement and ripped it to shreds, then an hour later he pulled a slip of paper from behind a clock and stared at it for a moment.

"So that's what your trick was, that could've been dangerous… if it had been hidden properly." He said to himself, mockery soaking into every single inch of his tone before he placed whatever it was in his mouth and devoured it.

Then he simply walked out the front door, Noodle having proven wise enough to flee long ago, leaving Not-Slip to return from to his car and drive away.

You gradually exit the trance you entered while you wrote to find yourself staring down at the page in deep thought, your exhausted mind whirling as it returns to the same well worn tracks it's been running along for the last several days,

Slip, or rather, Not-Slip, broke into Slip's house to dispose of evidence of Slip's… something. But what the heck was Not-Slip? Had he been Possessed? Cloned? Was it possible that that was the real Slip and that the one you'd known was the-

Your thoughts are suddenly cut off as once more your phone rings, summoning another truly dispirited groan past your lips as the phone cavity in your chest begins to jiggle in response to the machine's vibrations.

"Ugh… what-" you begin before cutting yourself off as the call connects and the calm and practiced voice of a 911 operator jerks you back into full alertness.
"There's a shootout between a moderately well armed group of Five Elements thugs equipped with small arms and The Massacre Men on Pencil Avenue, Water is engaging with Road Trip and Cosplay as we speak." It's happening. You're already on your feet and coaxing feathers from your back before the words even finish penetrating your mind and you're in front of nearby window before her sentence finally finishes.

"The three of them seem to be fighting over a van of some sort, owned by a small startup company called Memoir Incorporated. The company's owner and sole member is apparently inside this van."

You soar towards the battlefield and less than a minute later you're almost there, preparing to dive as your sharpened eyesight picks out almost every detail of the battlefield below you.

Water's goons, (distinguished by the blue arm bands they wear) are focused on the van but Roadtrip seems to be taking incredible delight in stalling their progress, taking lazy shots with a rife whenever they get out from behind the cars they're hiding behind and laughing with gleeful delight as every bullet sent towards her halts with a pulse of red light from the five mile speed limit sign circling above her head.

Meanwhile just down the street a Water fought a samurai, accepting a brutal flurry of cuts too fast for the eye to see before a mean right hook sent Cosplay sailing backwards, even as Roadtrip starts to prepare another sign.

The three of them look much like they always have, well, two of them, Cosplay is something of wild card beyond the near total lack of effort given to each performance.

Water wore long black gloves, a nice fedora, and an unbelievably expensive black suit to contrast with her sister's white one. Her pale and undeniably pretty face contorted into a disdainful scowl, inspecting the damage Cosplay's blade had done to her long black hair. "You'll pay for this transgression." She told the swordsman, who sprung back to his feet and silently returned to his stance,

Every aspect of his appearance told everyone who bothered to look exactly how little effort he put into each costume, eclipsed even by Roadtrip's simple metallic armor painted red and white.

O-O-O-O-O

Congratulations, you have earned 3 power points (used for improving your powers and skills and such) for your adventures thus far and two hero points (which you can spend while playing to do better) one for compelling you into battle with Mary (my bad that you didn't receive it sooner) and the other for the exhaustion you're currently dealing with.

[ ] Write in a Battle Plan:

Would you like a complication in this fight in exchange for another hero point?

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