Yeah, communicating with Runic non-verbally is an issue when time is ticking. If she helps, then Alhamdullilah, that's good. If she doesn't help, that's fine too. It is after all pretty risky if Curseling is in a feral state like that.
Vote Closed, may the dice have mercy on your body, mind, and soul
Scheduled vote count started by alexthealright on Apr 9, 2025 at 12:04 AM, finished with 3 posts and 2 votes.
[X] Distract her yourself
-[X] Ask Runic to help us, saying we want to try and make sure that both our friend and Curseling survive. Proceed without her if she refuses.
-[X] Assume the following form: Protection 8, Enhanced Dodge 3, Enhanced Parry 3, Enhanced Advantages 6 (Improved Initiative 3, Power Attack, Defensive Attack, Move By Action), Ranged Affliction 8 (Accurate 6, Precise), Flight 7 (Winged), with a specific note that the attacks are intended as nonlethal.
-[X] Proceed to harass Curseling with ranged attacks, getting near enough to her to draw fire if necessary, but intending to mostly stay at range and get her to chase us, fighting defensively if we can keep her at range. If she's faster or starts using ranged attacks of her own, then she's faster, and we'll take our lumps as needed.
[X] Distract her yourself
-[X] Ask Runic to help us, saying we want to try and make sure that both our friend and Curseling survive. Proceed without her if she refuses.
-[X] Assume the following form: Protection 8, Enhanced Dodge 3, Enhanced Parry 3, Enhanced Advantages 6 (Improved Initiative 3, Power Attack, Defensive Attack, Move By Action), Ranged Affliction 8 (Accurate 6, Precise), Flight 7 (Winged), with a specific note that the attacks are intended as nonlethal.
-[X] Proceed to harass Curseling with ranged attacks, getting near enough to her to draw fire if necessary, but intending to mostly stay at range and get her to chase us, fighting defensively if we can keep her at range. If she's faster or starts using ranged attacks of her own, then she's faster, and we'll take our lumps as needed.
After eyeing Curseling's murderously playful dance and Metal's rapidly failing armor with unconcealed panic you turn to Runic and prepare to make one of the harder sells you've made in your life.
"Runic," you begin, "She's going to kill my new student, my friend. Please, I'm not asking you to hurt her anything, just distract her so she doesn't kill the person I sent here to warn you that this was about to happen. Do you think she'd want that blood on her hands if she was in her right mind?"
Runic's skeleton leans back for a second, staring at the sky. Then she grabs Fire by the head, hefts him over her shoulder, and spins him, once, twice, thrice, then tosses him into her, her projectile's enormous form also catching Metal and sending all three of them into and then through the concrete with a crack.
As you made that speech you changed your body a great deal, keeping the armored plates that protected your body and supplementing them with a quartet of wings and an array of venomous dart throwers along your arms. Now you put these changes to good use, taking to the sky and firing a barrage of the things down at Curseling the moment she vanished from the pile in the crater and reappeared thirty feet above it with a smell of ozone and rotting meat so powerful that for a moment it overpowered the smell of eye watering smoke and burning flesh that filled the street.
Your first attack fires through nothing but a rapidly fading distortion in space the unpleasant smell returning with a vengeance as she reappears far above you with screech of hate.
A dozen branching beams of burning unlight spew from her eyes and spiral down to sear into your body even as another two branches bend away from you to bite into the only significant people she can see who are still fighting.
You just barely twist past the rays of flame and Runic weathers the barrage without complaint, but half of Polar's foot thick shield and several inches of armor vanishes in a flash of steam as he leaps in front of something you can't see through the smoke… maybe she's already mind controlled him?
That's not good, you think, it's not good at all, and the bolts you just dodged are starting to swerve back around towards you, "Curseling!" You shout, "I'm going to beat you silly! Get ready to fight!"
That bluff turns her monstrous, inhuman eyes on you, which seemed like as good a time as any to start gaining distance, with the rocket power, teleporting monster you'd just aggravated. Flying as low as you can and positioning Runic so that she's between the two of you.
A gambit that honestly pays off fantastically, because Runic's leaping grapple connects, grabbing her arms even as she wraps her legs around her somewhat insane friend. Unfortunately, while this is certainly slowing her down and messing with her flying, and the lightning that was building around her hands seem to be coursing into both of them instead of firing at you… but she's charging you, and apparently rockets of bleeding black fire are significantly faster, and she's tough enough to not care about the ruined building in her way that you contented yourself with simply flying through the holes.
Realizing that you're rapidly running out of buildings with holes in them and the beams are starting to close again you start flying upwards and out of the enormous plume of smoke into fresh, clean, crisp air. And then the whirling stream of gray beams finally catch up and bite into your back.
You force yourself to keep climbing upwards with a grunt of pain, knowing full well that slowing down is a very bad idea, even as you turn in the sky to plant a few well placed shots into Curseling's face, causing little more than a coughing fit that, while not quite powerful enough to stop her, does seem like it's slowing her down a bit, though you're not quite sure why.
Runic's assault is a bit less effective than yours, she's trying to crush her wrists and nothing seems to be happening other than more lightning lashing the two of them senseless. Not even a headbut to the face knocks her off course, though it does give the woman a bloody nose.
Then she vanishes and that horrid smell returns for an instant as she reappears above you, opens her mouth, and fires a scarlet shockwave from between her teeth which hits the both of you like the hammer of an irate god, or a light punch from your late mentor.
You're less than proud to say that your first thought when you saw her appear was "Well at least Runic will take the brunt of the blast." But that's quickly pushed to the back of your mind when the blast sends you flying into the street below and pain blooms all across your body.
Runic didn't fare much better, several parts of her bones have been chipped rather badly from what you can see and to make matters worse she's finally captured the witch's full attention.
Curseling's rocket suddenly sputters out and dies, leaving the two of them plummeting together even as you spring back onto your feet and take to the sky with your usual speed, firing bolt after bolt of tranquilizing gas up at the many limbed mountain of shadow that has replaced Curseling, the two of them biting and crushing and kicking as both sides plummeted towards the ground.
They narrowly miss a house as they fall, instead landing in some poor family's backyard and demolishing it within moments, beginning to wreck the as of yet undamaged neighborhood in the span of perhaps four and a half seconds.
For a moment the paperwork required for this level of chaos flashes through your mind, and if the smoke hadn't already done the job, you might've begun to cry.
The struggle is fast paced and brutal, streets crumple beneath Runic's form as she tries to reestablish a grip and gas filled darts explode around Curseling's head, the two of you trying to beat her down before she'd shattered absolutely everything around us into tiny bits and set them on fire.
Runic is definitely trying to limit the damage, which you really do appreciate. But she's outclassed, plain and simple, fighting someone just as strong and noticeably faster, with several times as many limbs to attack with, to grab, to kick, and to almost flash step across the battlefield on ten goriloid arms.
Bystanders scream and run in terror as you keep peppering her with the few darts you can weave around Runic's body, slowly wearing her down as the bone woman was slowly chipped apart.
A tree is wrenched from the ground by six muscled arms and filled with black energy, which she prepares to slam downwards just as another coughing fit strikes her, followed by another dart of gas, which prolonged the fit enough for an uppercut to send the mass of many armed shadow flying high enough to clip the roof of a house before it landed in a still screaming heap down the street.
Taking advantage of its temporarily dazed state you pick Runic up by her arms and metaphorically rocket back into the choking smoke of the ruined neighborhood, it's definitely not perfect, but unfortunately it's still better than letting her wreck even more of the so far undamaged parts of the city.
The foul smell of the damned street welcomes you back like an old friend, its foul scent slithering up your nostrils as you hover well overhead, trying and failing to spot Polar without dropping your momentary ally. Who, after a moment of thought, you move to set down on the street below just as Curseling returns with one great leap, spewing fire from all five holes in her face. A display that would be a great deal more threatening if she didn't stumble like that as she landed.
Then in one more leap she's on the two of you, or she would be if her wheezing coughs and intermittent shudders didn't spoil the jump and instead sent her into the burning wreck of the building right behind you and maybe ten feet to your left. Completing its descent into a pile of rubble with an unholy boom.
The insane superhuman rises to face you, a noticeable fist sized dent in her shadow drenched chest, and receives a gas dart right between her mutated jaws, sending her stumbling back a step as her adoptive… something delivers a nice second dent to match the first.
In response she picks the skeletal woman up in her many hands by the legs and sends her sailing down the street to send ash and dust sailing into the sky. And then she's leaping for you again.
You fire yet another dart and barely dodge her dozen hands, each crackling with blood red lightning with a quick flap of the wing, trying to gain distance and shooting off another dart to try to blast her back, one which sails into her face and strikes her right in the eye, releasing yet another burst of gas as the broken shards of the dart draw the slightest thimbleful of blood.
She freezes as the bolt hits home, stumbles forward a step as her phantom arms and umbral scales fade away into pitch black slime, and then she collapses, the lightning coursing through her body dying as she slumps to the floor, sleeping deeply.
The walking skeleton and her odd necklace, Runic, strides closer, suddenly a lot more cautious of you. She picks the girl up, wipes some of the unidentifiable black slime off her ever so slightly charred clothing. Then taps her on the head until the sludge encrusted woman stirs, and begins to cough up some… backwash.
You stand there awkwardly for a minute or two, producing some numbing ointment to rub against the insistent burns from Curseling's horrid little laser eye barrage. It's taking forever to heal, like all burns do.
With that sorted you take the opportunity to, "One sec," you tell Runic, before you step away search around for Polar, letting your ears grow into a local panopticon, letting you search for your student while still keeping an eye on the superhuman behind you. Runic might've gotten banged up, but she could still sucker punch you and pull a runner if you aren't careful.
You notice him after a few moments, finding the slow drip drip drip of blood within his icy armor. And a second heartbeat right right beside him, that one beating significantly faster than your apprentice's oddly calm drumbeat.
You also hear the quiet… you're not actually sure what to call the noise of slime moving out of a sewage pipe and onto the street, but that's the noise Viscous makes as she emerges from hiding in genuinely, truly, beyond disgusting fashion.
You hold your nose as you call your student out, "Polar! It's safer now! You can come out now!"
Viscous drifts closer, a smile plastered across her liquid face before she bends into a bow so low it seems almost insulting, "Chimera! Nice to see you again."
Well she certainly hadn't changed, "Nice to see you again?" You asked, "I assume you're about to try to kill me." It isn't a question.
"Oh good heavens no! You're perfectly safe, we'd never dare kill you when you were so careful with my kid," her sewage smelling arm stretched out, becoming solid for just long enough to think better of a pat on her children's/subordinates back.
A moment later you tense as the smell of acid fills your nostrils and the slime woman begins to smoke, "Pardon me," she says, "but the smell was beginning to bother me."
"Took you long enough," Curseling wheezes out through the phlegm before descending in a coughing fit. At last well enough to speak, "So, Chimy-" she pauses to spew yet more black fluid from her mouth. "So, Chimy, why'd you get so upset that you decided, out of everyone here, I was the one who needed to-" the skeleton at her side pinches her with one hand as she waves a rude gesture in front of the sick woman's face with the other.
"You were about ten seconds from disemboweling my student." You frostily replied. Enjoying the guilty flinch that Curseling smothers as fast as it surfaced.
"Most terrifying moments of my life." Polar casually agrees, half carrying, half dragging someone covered in an outgrowth of the same sort of icy armor he was wearing, though theirs lacked the blotches of red that marked a rather serious series of injuries all across his body. "Chimera," he says with a nod, "this is Semantha. She got a good look at how things progressed and I think you'd like to talk to her."
The name rings a faint bell for whatever reason, but you brush it off quickly. "She's not hurt or anything?"
"No, just had a little bit of a fright," Semantha replies, so plainly terrified you'd feel really bad for calling her out on it, even on one of your worse days.
You accept the lie with a nod and continue to talk with what members of the Coven are still here, "So, are we going to have any more problems here?"
"We were just leaving," Viscous said firmly, "Thank you for your calm mind and deep restraint."
And with that… the battle stops, Wind and Earth have probably run away by now, leaving her neatly undermined and probably much less useful to her mysterious patron, and the Coven doesn't have the ambition to try and pull themselves into a major force in the city.
All in all… the day could've been worse.
You almost vocalize that, but think better of it. Best not to tempt fate, you think.
The building across the street from you collapses anyway, but it was a good effort.
(Your phone would be ringing right about now, if it hadn't been destroyed that is)
O-O-O-O-O
Good job! I really, really, really, really, really hoped she'd get her hands on you with the lightning punches, but luck, my own (less than fantastically well reasoned) cost cutting in the fortitude department, and a really lucky meat shield kept that from coming to pass.
Anyway, bad assumptions on my end about your chances of hurting her aside, you've got a few choices to make.
The Coven
[ ] Try to do something sneaky involving them? Track them, poison them, anything like that
-[ ] Insert Method Here
[ ] Don't do anything like that, too risky and really dishonest anyway.
The Five Elements Prisoners
[ ] Take them prisoner and nothing else
[ ] Take them prisoner and do something extra
-[ ] Insert Specifics Here
Votes about the people you saved will wait until you've got a clearer picture of your surroundings. So expect them at the end of the next update if you don't decide to do something that'll need a lot of attention around here.
You stand there awkwardly for a minute or two, producing some numbing ointment to rub against the institant burns from Curseling's horrid little laser eye barrage. It has been forever to heal, like all burns do.
For the typo, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be "insistent" or "instant".
Also, you can replace the "has been" with "takes".
Okay, so the update itself... More Power = Less Sanity really is a deadly combination. The way Curseling becomes feral while having that kind of power is awful to those around her.
Still, it's a good thing Runic helps Chimera. I really like the team-up! The way Runic basically tries to distract Curseling as much as possible while also taking a bunch of damage is cool.
And, it's also cool to see Chimera's darts eventually being effective against Curseling. The way she coughed until she was knocked out once one of the darts hit her eye is cool.
As the Coven retreats and firefighters and ambulances at last arrive you find a phone pressed into your hands by a harried looking fire chief who you nod appreciatively at as you desperately try to remember his name and press the phone to your ear.
This turns out to be something of a mistake, for your enhanced hearing is still active and the commissioner is speaking quite loudly, you don't think you've ever heard him quite so… incandescent.
"M-miss, would you m-mind telling me ex-exactly what ha-has been k-k-keeping you? I have been c-callling you for s-some time now. There's be-been a problem at the jails." He demands.
Carefully hiding your surprise at his uncharacteristically raised voice, you answer with the calm of a woman who has seen a Kaiju the size of a skyscraper start trying to crack open a disaster bunker full of innocent people and does not have any time to waste on anything less important. "My phone was broken in the fight, what sort of problem?" You ask with a slight sinking feeling in your stomach.
As it turns out, the problem is quite obvious from a simple glance, as you discover when you set eyes on the place mere moments later as you take to the wing while the Commissioner is mastering himself in general and in particular his temper.
There is a hole in the jail's wall, and a great deal of blood around it and down the hall inside to dispel any hopes that this was anything other than a very bloody breakout, though, you console yourself, there's at least too much of the stuff for Water to have been the one who did this… which follows with the less pleasant but equally indisputable fact that there was only one other person in this jail that could have possibly warranted a force like this, with a patron who was aware of the chaos ahead of time.
You zoom past the officers securing the scene and make for the cell loaded down with chains and a reinforced metal door.
Mary is gone, with the guards in from of her door reduced to well chewed hamburger meat and quickly drying paint on the wall and door, the later of which rent asunder with razor sharp claws larger than any cat you've ever seen save, perhaps, a few genetically engineered horrors you've had the displeasure of encountering on some of the rare occasions you and Adamant had been called away to help your peers out of the city.
Luckily the commissioner seems to have waited until you stopped moving before beginning to talk.
"So," you say dully, the triumph of a minute ago fading like morning dew in a desert, "I assume you were telling me that Mary has escaped."
"Ah, y-you're on the scene no-now?" He asked.
"Yes, what… What happened here? What did the cameras see?"
"E-ef-effectively everything, though they b-blacked out several times. It seems to have been a- an enormous cat of some sort, the size of a c-car, a, um, superhuman one. It b-broke in through other side of the building c-compared to yo-you, m-made straight for Mary's c-cell, then they kept going and left thr-through the hole you entered by."
"How did it get that close? I can't picture a jaguar walking around the city without anyone kicking up a fuss." You ask, then following up with another question as soon as it occurs, "And where the heck did they go after that? Again, giant jaguar, and judging by the walls in here the both of them should've been caked in blood."
"W-we're looking for them, they were moving fast, and I-I'd presume that this- oh, how did you know it was a Jaguar?"
You glance back through your memory, trying to come up with what made you say that, "I… I have no idea, it just seemed right."
He sighs, "Good to k-know, let me know if a-anything else, 'just s-seems, right. We'll l-let you know if we ca-can track them, h-help would be ap-p-p-preciated once the f-fires have stopped bu-burning."
You give your acknowledgement and cut the call before flying back to the burning street, cursing vilely under your breath as you go.
O-O-O-O-O
The next day, Mace and Angela Jackson, and Mace's sister, Semantha Jackson, sit around a table in the cosy little back room of a cafe which owed Adamant a favor and didn't need the room for a few hours anyway, or so they said.
You examine them from across the table, they seem… certainly not calm or relaxed, in fact they seem downright terrified. Though, to be fair, you remind yourself that each of them did in fact nearly die horribly yesterday.
The three of them are sipping hot chocolate and nibbling on a steady supply of pastries as you slowly get them to open up, using every tool of polite interrogation known to man, and finally, they seem like they're ready for you to start asking questions and give good answers.
O-O-O-O-O
Please vote by plan for this one
During the investigation by yourself and the police you will uncover one of these three things, you will most certainly learn the others later, but not now, and perhaps not in time for them to be useful.
[ ] Learn exactly who this new person is and therefore get a whole info dump from STAR's intelligence apparatus on her activities and personality.
[ ] Get a good but difficult lead on Primary's base. You won't learn where it is right away and learning more will be difficult, but will get a good, solid lead.
[ ] Learn more about a dangerous tool in Primary's arsenal
If you may instead ask two of the questions above if you decide to cut the firefighting short as quickly as you can and let the normals and perhaps Polar handle that sort of thing. People will probably die because of that choice, but… well, Primary seems to kill a lot of people, maybe beating him down might be worth it.
Additionally, you have freedom to ask anything you like of the three Jacksons, and next update will receive an opportunity to ask another round of them to build off of this one.
Again, please vote for plan by this one, for example…
[ ] Plan Example Plan
-[ ] Learn more about a dangerous tool in Primary's arsenal
-[ ] Do Not Cut Firefighting Corners
-[ ] Jackson Questions
I'm very against skimping on the firefighting, as I don't think getting a second question answered immediately will speed up Primary's defeat materially. Beyond that I honestly have no idea which of the three is most important or what to ask the Jackson family beyond maybe trying to figure out why they were targeted...
Also, @alexthealright can we get a list of currently in-custody super-criminals? I think I might be starting to lose track of who's been taken care of in that regard.
I'm very against skimping on the firefighting, as I don't think getting a second question answered immediately will speed up Primary's defeat materially. Beyond that I honestly have no idea which of the three is most important or what to ask the Jackson family beyond maybe trying to figure out why they were targeted...
Also, @alexthealright can we get a list of currently in-custody super-criminals? I think I might be starting to lose track of who's been taken care of in that regard.
[X] Plan: I forgot who jackson is
-[X] Get a good but difficult lead on Primary's base. You won't learn where it is right away and learning more will be difficult, but will get a good, solid lead.
-[X] Do Not Cut Firefighting Corners
-[X] Jackson Questions
--[X] Where would any of you like to stay?
--[X] So the reason why you're targeted is because of a villain who goes by "Primary" is trying to eliminate all of you because he said all of you know certain topics. What exactly are these topics?
--[X] Would any of you like to say something to me or anyone else for that matter before we continue?
Ill try to fill in the plan once I get some free time to reread
Edit: Copied the other plans questions, I think if we know where the base is we can raid it for more info
Hm, well, learning about this dangerous tool can hopefully help Chimera avoid it.
As for the plan, well, I suppose Chimera should ask the obvious questions first. Feel free to make a new version based off mine.
My Vote:
[X] Plan: Obvious Questions and Information Gathering v1
-[X] Learn more about a dangerous tool in Primary's arsenal
-[X] Do Not Cut Firefighting Corners
-[X] Jackson Questions
--[X] Where would any of you like to stay?
--[X] So the reason why you're targeted is because of a villain who goes by "Primary" is trying to eliminate all of you because he said all of you know certain topics. What exactly are these topics?
--[X] Would any of you like to say something to me or anyone else for that matter before we continue?
Scheduled vote count started by alexthealright on Apr 29, 2025 at 7:00 PM, finished with 8 posts and 3 votes.
[X] Plan: Obvious Questions and Information Gathering v1
-[X] Learn more about a dangerous tool in Primary's arsenal
-[X] Do Not Cut Firefighting Corners
-[X] Jackson Questions
--[X] Where would any of you like to stay?
--[X] So the reason why you're targeted is because of a villain who goes by "Primary" is trying to eliminate all of you because he said all of you know certain topics. What exactly are these topics?
--[X] Would any of you like to say something to me or anyone else for that matter before we continue?
[X] Plan: I forgot who jackson is
-[X] Get a good but difficult lead on Primary's base. You won't learn where it is right away and learning more will be difficult, but will get a good, solid lead.
-[X] Do Not Cut Firefighting Corners
-[X] Jackson Questions
--[X] Where would any of you like to stay?
--[X] So the reason why you're targeted is because of a villain who goes by "Primary" is trying to eliminate all of you because he said all of you know certain topics. What exactly are these topics?
--[X] Would any of you like to say something to me or anyone else for that matter before we continue?
You rip open a hole in the scorching hot roof of the car and yank the two kids out, wrap their unconscious bodies up in your wings and take off with a great rush of wings, leaving the upturned vehicle behind as it was slowly consumed by the burning building it had been tossed into before you arrived.
Concrete meets your feet with a thud as you land on the hospital balcony set aside minutes ago to act as a landing point and hand the two of them off to a disheveled blonde and their team to examine them for injuries. Then you're back in the air, wind and ash rushing through your hair in equal measure.
Once more you land, enhanced ears already scanning for that telltale heartbeat noise through the clamor of the destruction and the actions of the firefighters, the spraying water and steam, and the clamor of a hundred footsteps every moment.
After a moment of searching you point out another couple of trapped victims with a voice that reverberates in just the right way to be heard over all the shouting before diving into the fire once more, this time pushing into the basement of a clothing store to free a family from the slowly building smoke. After a quick examination, it becomes clear that these four are, for the most part, fine, so you place them gently on the sidewalk, give them a few kind words and direct them to someone without superpowers to handle them, and go looking for another person.
Minutes pass like water from a hose, quickly stretching into hours as you work, illuminated by nothing but the flames till the final minutes, when the sun begins to climb into the sky.
And it is then, at last, when the fires have stopped burning and the civilians have been rescued, and the hospitals have been stuffed. You can finally join the investigation of the prison break.
Unfortunately there are a distressing number of people who can turn into a jaguar or appear as the same, and of those a whole lot of them might've been inclined to breaking someone out of jail for a mountain of money, so that hasn't gone anywhere yet beyond a distracted promise from a couple of people out of the city to look into when they've got time. Time they probably won't have for a while considering the increase in Kaiju sightings on the pacific coast.
On the other hand… the two of them had left several witnesses in their path, and a few questions about the flickering cameras during the crisis had directed them to the man who managed the prison's camera system.
"W-we discovered the problem with him wh-when he got his daughter's name wr-wrong. When as-asked other questions about his own l-life he got m-more incorrect and as that happened he-he became agitated… then tried to escape the building with a pil-pilfered gun. He was restrained… and that's when we f-found the a- markings on the b-back of h-his neck. They were hidden underneath his h-hair. I- I assume you would like to inspect him?"
"Yes." You answer, "Yes I very much would. Where is he?"
He is, it turns out, nice and ready in an interrogation room, stuck in a straight jacket and then close to mummified in duct tape everywhere but his head and neck. And even with all that a trio of men are still standing next to him, keeping guard.
The guards nod at you and begin to eagerly file out of the room as you enter, their expressions haunted.
Because at this point the thing in Brian Steadman's body is done pretending they're anything more than a monster wearing another man's skin. Its stolen body's face contorted into a sneer of contempt and hate.
"So," you ask the bodysnatcher, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to just tell me everything you know about your boss, get put in a new body? They're usually quite understanding of people in your position so long as you, you know, recognize that this game of yours is over and cooperate."
It's disappointing when it breaks into maniacal laughter, but not all that unsurprising. The monologuing is a nice consolation prize though, you have to admit. "You think this game is over?" It asks, surprisingly well collected once it sucks in a breath, "You might've found me, but we have been 'recruiting' for some time now. I. Am Everywhere. You foolish little child, and you won't see me until-"
"Until someone asks one of you anything the original should've known?" You needle, hoping to keep rant going for as long as you can.
Unfortunately something in your eyes must have given you away, because he claps his mouth shut. "I… would like a lawyer."
Needless to say, there's not much more to be done there, leaving you to have a short conversation with the Commissioner, not a long one, simply enough to agree that the police department and, frankly, pretty much everyone really, needs the occasional check on their neck for those distinctive scar marks. And also that 'Brian' needs to be subjected to a variety of tests to better assess exactly what you're dealing with.
O-O-O-O
"So," you begin, "First of all, has the safe house I set you up with been serviceable? Nobody has been following you around? Everything has been working correctly?"
"Yes, yes it's been working nicely," Mister Jackson says, you're not sure if it's the current circumstances or he's just a natural worrier but he's needed a whole lot of calming pheromones to get him to this point. There are deep bags under his eyes from a sleepless, stressful night and every once in a while he starts fidgeting again.
"That's good to hear, let me know if anything changes there, especially if you think you're being followed."
The three of them nodded and you moved on to the meat of the conversation, "As best as I can tell, you were attacked because a villain named Primary thought you knew too much about 'certain topics. Which topics were those?" You finish as the three of them share a look.
Angela sighs, "It was… it probably had something to do with my brother, Dan… um, sorry I'm not usually like this, it's just…" she pauses for a second, trying to figure out the best way to explain it, before… "I learned a few weeks ago that my brother was actually Slip, my maiden name is Richter."
You pause for a moment, "Ah." You say intelligently, "That must've been hard to learn, were you on good terms? Did he say anything before..." there's really no good way to say, 'before he participated in a terrorist attack.'
"We were on good terms I thought," Semantha said, "He was a nervous wreck, but he was a nice enough man."
"He started acting weird a week or two before… before, asking a few odd questions, saying strange stuff. Things like that." Angela explains.
"Interesting," you say, making a note in your journal to circle back to that in a moment. "Before we circle back around to that, is there anything you'd like to say to me, or to tell anyone else who you can't contact right now because of the… you know, attempt on your life?
"Well," Mister Jackson says, "First of all I'd like to offer my condolences, and… we'll make a list of the rest when this conversation is over. Thank you for the offer though. I really appreciate it."
O-O-O-O
[ ] Get 'Brian' examined locally
Should be quick, some security concerns, lack of local superhumans or inventions able to help so it'll be less clear how this body snatching works.
[ ] Get 'Brian' examined by Fireball's Branch
Will be slower, significantly fewer security concerns, you should be able to get some high quality inventors or sherlock types, which should get a lot more information on the body snatching.
You may also now do that second round of questions
[X] Get 'Brian' examined by Fireball's Branch
Will be slower, significantly fewer security concerns, you should be able to get some high quality inventors or sherlock types, which should get a lot more information on the body snatching.
[X] You said he started asking you odd questions and saying weird stuff. What exactly did he say
[X] Get 'Brian' examined by Fireball's Branch
Will be slower, significantly fewer security concerns, you should be able to get some high quality inventors or sherlock types, which should get a lot more information on the body snatching.
