Death in Skyway City

Furball seemed offended. I didn't care. There was a job to do. I pulled out my sidearm and beckoned my officers forward into the sewer gates down below. "Alright, we're moving in" I bellowed, just as a familiar figure with a white crucifix insignia flew across the morning skies. My team trogded through the muddy waters and into the tunnels. "Keep your eyes open for territorial Lost!"

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((I don't know what your character's definition of a murderer is, so I'll just say he caught it psychically whether it was coming to him or not))

The figure hovered slowly out of the fracture in the earth, and turned intending to head down the alleyway and out into the street, but suddenly paused as a psychic message bounded over the city. It spread out quite fast over the entire city so it wasn't too hard for him to psychically catch and extract it. As smirk curved across his face as he listened to it.

"Empaths..." He muttered. "Their deaths are so sweet...It's been too long..." He suddenly shot up into the air, crackling with psychic energy. Staring out over to the police-cordoned area, he saw there was quite a large number of heroes. A smaller group of them were currently heading to the sewers but, "...Still too many." He sighed with annoyance, hovering back down towards the earth and heading to one of the higher rent districts of Skyway.

* * *

James Howard walked casually down the street of Aerie Plaza, heading to Big John's Cafe and Diner. He stood about six feet two and had nicely-cut, dark brown hair, not too short and not too long. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up high and the tails hanging out of his black trousers, which obscured his regular black shoes. Sticking out of the left pocket of his trousers was a light blue tie, while on the other side he held a worn, dark-green, thigh-length coat in his right hand, dragging it carelessly along the pavement with him.

Stepping through the door of the diner he called out to the waitress behind the counter casually, "Hey Joan, how's life treatin' ya?" He quickly dropped into a nearby seat. She rolled her eyes, walking towards him, taking a notepad and pen with her. "I'm working as a waitress in a diner, howdya think?" He had no response. "So, what'll it be?"

"Burger and fries, heavy on the fries." She took it down, heading back behind the counter. "Don't they ever smell the grease on you up in that big office of yours?"
"They probably do, but I'm too good at my job for them to make a big deal out of it," he said unmodestly, with a big stupid grin.

The appearance of the coat on the back of his chair was uncanny, and yet this mysterious figure seemed every bit James Howard, the office worker who gorges himself on greasy food well below his price-range. In fact, if you were to read his mind you would probably just hear undignified thoughts about the waitress behind the counter. However, deep inside there was still that barely audible whisper. Every psychic should breath a heavy sigh of relief as I'm taking a short break to think up a plan of action.

---

Bad Voodoo by @Beyond Reach. Arc ID #373659. Level 20-24. Mr. Bocor has fallen victim to a group of hooded vigilantes who have been plaguing Port Oakes, interfering with illegal operations and pacifying villain's powers. He demands that revenge is taken on these miscreants and his powers are returned! You look like just the villain for the job. Challenging.

Vix peered into the darker depths that were the sewers. She hated it down here, nearly as much as she hated the sanity forsaken caves of Eastgate Heights in the Hollows. Dark, dank, cloying air and a hive of dark feelings and emotions.
They didn't want to attract too much attention down here.

She blinked, eyes glowing red for just a second, until the contrast of light and dark had shifted enough to give her an adjusted vision, suited more the dark down here.
"Don't bother with torches...that's like dropping prime steak in the middle of a school of sharks," she warned, beginning to extend her mind to replicate the temporary change on the others. "If anyone objects to temporary induced night-vis, though, just say the word..."

---

A figure was not far into the sewers, wearing a small gas mask that covered the lower half of their face, they also had a pair of thick goggle and were carrying a sports bag in one hand and a large drill with what looked like a fat silencer on the other. They were a dark green leather trench coat which seemed to change pattern to match the wall behind it.

"Ten thousand, Eleven thousand, drill baby drill" and pressing a finger to the wall a small crack of hot light sparked up before they pressed the mechanical drill to it which did it's job with a greatly muffled 'vrmmmm' sound. Reaching into the sports bad, a long thin tube with a black, shiny dome on one end is pressed into the hole and a PDA is pulled out to check on something.

---

I heard a noise in the dimly lit tunnels, like distorted voices. Instinctively, I withdrew my torchlight and assumed the firearm across torch technique, flashing the high beams across the darkness. "Police! Identify yourself!"

---

Vix rolled her eyes, stepping back into the shadows. Her fur didn't blend with the brickwork, but coupled with her mostly black clothing it was dark enough to make her hard to spot. She peered at the figure down the tunnel with night-sight eyes, trying to figure out who or what it was. She also extended her empathic reach, trying to get a feeling for if it was hostile or not.

And, if needs be, to haul the Lieutenants backside out of trouble...

---

A small bulky looking device on the figures arm starts to beep as a purple light flares up and Vix gets a feeling that the figure was both cheerful and a little surprised.

Lowering the drill gun she presses a button on the band that fades her trench coat into a much more visible dark green and pulls up the goggles. She has fair skin and blue eyes underneath and her short black hair is much more visible. "Hero ID RS 49021, Lab Bunny. Can I help Officer? Um.. and can people stop reading my mind? It's really rude." she calls out, fiddling with the wrist device to turn off the warning light.

---

"Empathy isn't mind reading. It *is* rude to pry without asking, which is why I don't do it," Vix said, stepping out of the shadows. "What on earth are you doing down here, though?"

---

"Oh sorry! Can't really filter between the two yet as we've not worked out which filters affect empathy and which are psychic although classification of the two can cross over anyway. My emotions are tied to my mind after all, so you're still reading it, you could always have just asked 'Hey Bunny, how are you?' " says Bunny in a rush, rather keen to clarify.

"We did ask for help with the study on this actually but weirdly no one wanted to help us track down an effective way to spot when people were poking around in heads. Still, I'd rather you kept out of my emotional set for now else I'm going to have to turn the beeper off and that'll stop the early warning for Lost. Although the thing went totally nuts a short while ago anyway, but it does that on occasion just some city sweep. We're thinking we should put the finding to someone in Office as its amazing how much unwarranted psychic scanning is going on in the city, really should crack down on it or install some psychic dampening overlays on key city points to prevent fourteenth amendment abuse, after all if you can't be private in your own head then how can..." she gets into before tailing off after realising who she was talking too.

"Well, um.. anyway. I'm installing some monitoring equipment" she says patting the half empty sports bag. "Just got the chameleon suit on to keep out of the way of anything nasty down here and the tracking band is getting a testing to help us spot things creeping up on us. What are you doing down here?"

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((Sorry, folks - last minute change to my plans. I'm on a training course at work for the next fortnight, so internet access is extremely intermitent. Apologies. I'll post when I can.))

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The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise. ; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*

I radioed in the discovery of the Lab Bunny and left the documentation work to the guys back at the station. "We need you to stop whatever you're doing and give us a helping hand. We're down here in pursuit of a suspect, what are your skills Lab Bunny?" I asked, without stopping. I kept moving deeper into the tunnel, sidearm and torch poised. That's when I heard the voices, coming from the adjacent tunnels. I heard hurried footsteps coming our way, getting louder and louder. I spun round with my torch and noticed a man-sized hole in the walls, crawling with mutated Lost.

---

Packing up the bag and slinging it over her shoulder, Lab Bunny pulls her goggles back down and waves a blue glowing hand. "Fusion Energy projection as standard, as well as plenty of devices for all sorts of problems. If you need something analysed or fixed you won't find better than us either."

Looking up at the approaching Lost, Lab Bunny taps her wrist computer with a tut of frustration "Must have throw the electrical generator. Heroes here! Back off or you're getting worse than a few bruises" she yells, pulling a small home made grenade from her pocket, a steel can with wires and a small circuit board attached too it.

---

Vix swore, spinning to the oncoming horde.
"Hold it!" she shouted, keeping her hands ready, but at hip level. "We're not here for you lot...we're after the nutjob who's been commiting mass murder. Some of yours included."
She hoped it wouldn't come to a fight. She had no love of the Rikti, far from it, but she pitied those that fell into the clutches of the mind-warping Pariah's and Anathema.
It would help if the Lieutenant didn't keep shining the damn light everywhere and brandishing his gun. Fat lot of good that thing would do against some of the bigger ones...

---

Something came over me quite suddenly, a voice in my head soothing me to sleep, urging me to lower my weapon. I felt somewhat compelled to take a quick nap in the warmth of the sewerage and before I could stop myself, I had holstered my weapon and climbed down into the murky waters, curled up onto my side, eyes closed and fast asleep. Psychics. I hate psychics.

*****

A blur of black spandex zipped in and out of the canal, collecting bodies at super speed and dumping them across town, at the morgue. As the young preacher known as the Priest hauled the last of the corpses down for examination, he noticed that the bodies did indeed have no visible wounds. He looked up and questioned a member of the forensics team about the cause of death. The forensic scientist had a strained and overworked look on his face, but managed to give an answer. "They all died of extreme brain damage, sir, cerebral overload" he explained. "That kind of pressure can only be inflicted by a psychic, a very powerful and dangerous one."

*****

Meanwhile, back in the underground sewer network, an Aberrant Rector mutate lumbered into the tunnel, looking satisfied with himself, having disabled the armed police officer. He directed his gaze towards the collection of investigative heroes. "We won't be fighting today" came a deep voice, booming from beneath his moving slits that might have been a mouth once. "Your city has been disturbed but it is my friends and family who are being killed. If you are willing to help us find the killer, you have my word, you shan't be harmed. We have his scent, he is sitting above ground, at a diner. We need to move fast, are you with us, or not?"

---

Vix was about to reply, but glanced round first. With a particularly colourful swear word she ran over to Lieutenant Hicks and hauled him out under the armpits from the murky sludge.
"Don't envy this one," she muttured, leaving the rather sodden Lieutenant with his two companions, before turning to the Rector.
She had to fight down the impulse to blast the thing through three metres of solid wall. Still, one thing she would give the Rikti, and by and by the Lost, was they did have a sense of honour, of sorts. Slightly strange, slihgtly warped and twisted, but still present.
"I can't stand by and see people die. I can't speak for the others, but I'm in this until it's done."

---

((I assume by scent that means you can smell me, in that case, I guess I can only wait for you guys to show your faces ))

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Bad Voodoo by @Beyond Reach. Arc ID #373659. Level 20-24. Mr. Bocor has fallen victim to a group of hooded vigilantes who have been plaguing Port Oakes, interfering with illegal operations and pacifying villain's powers. He demands that revenge is taken on these miscreants and his powers are returned! You look like just the villain for the job. Challenging.

Lowering the home made grenade Lab Bunny nods as she tucks back inside one of the many pockets inside her lab coat "I'm with you, seems this guys pretty bad to warrant such a response. Lets get going"

---

((Sorry guys, in the middle of moving houses. My internet should be reinstalled by early June))

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Soaring through the morning clouds over Skyway City was a young woman with brilliant white hair, known to the American people as Damsel, the fledgeling street hero. She descended gracefully onto the concrete bridge and quickly inspected the crime scene. Under the bridge was swarming with forensics investigators though the bodies had clearly been moved off site and the skies above was now buzzing with hungry media helicopters.

---

When I came to, I couldn't remember anything beyond the past few minutes but somehow, my uniform had been drenched in sewage. My radio just about managed to pick up the distress call. Something about the coroner's office being under terrorist attack. I shook off the urge to arrest all those god damn psychics, I'm not stupid, I knew one of 'em had done something to me, but there wasn't time to build a case. "You know what, you ugly suckers can go fight your own battles, I got a morgue under zombie attack to deal with. In this messed up town, I wouldn't be surprised if your dead brothers were the ones back up and clobbering. Alright, come on boys, lets get the hell outta here. We got another crisis to deal with."

---

Vix shook her head sadly as the Lieutenant and his squad headed off. Psioniphobia was alwas a problem, and it never helped when you'd spent what felt like your entire life dedicated to helping people with said power.
With a faint sigh, she turned to the bulky Rector.
"Let's get going, then. Every second counts here."

---

As she wiped the blood off her rapiers using the bandana of one of the Hellions she'd just relieved of their life, Jeanne "Greymane" Beauvillon raised an eyebrow, glancing at a nearby sewer lid. Was it just her imagination, or did she hear voices? She crept closer, her eyes widening as it was clear her sense of hearing didn't play games with her. There were definitely people down there. She could faintly hear a female's voice: "...Every second counts here."

Whatever this was, it sounded important. And none too clean, either. Not being a woman of subtlety, Jeanne quickly decided on her course of action - She'd confront these sewage schemers and, if necessary, put them down. She pulled open the sewer lid, drew her blades and jumped in, only to stare up at a mutated aberration about twice her size.
The swordswoman swallowed a lump in her throat and looked around, noting only dim shapes in the faint light, at least one of which was a female shape with red glowing eyes. She let out a resigned sigh, muttering a soft "Merdre.." in her father's native tongue. This was going to be a loooong day. "I suppose you people are not the Paragon Sewers welcoming commitee?", she added in a voice tinged with the certainty of one who is expecting a lot of pain.

---

The scent of spandex followed a speeding blur of black as the young reverend returned to the crime scene in super speed. "Hey" said Pious, embracing his wife in a hug. "The media disaster's been averted like in my dream, but the main crisis is just around the corner. You alright?"

---

"Yeah, I'm fine" replied Rachel, holding on to her husband's embrace for a little longer. She gently runs her fingers across his arms, enjoying the firm texture of his spandex costume. "Sorry I'm late, I had to find the right outfit, you know?" Rachel pulled away a little, looking up at Pious with a knowing smile. "So, tell me about this dream, you little precog, what do we do next?"

---

Vix slowly stood from the protective, half crouched karate stance she had taken.
"Girl, word to the wise, don't drop in like that again. This day's not been a good one, and, trust me, 'bad hair day' takes on a whole new meaning when you're covered in fuzz!" Vix paused, clapping a hand to her right temple. She was getting a migraine. She hated migraines.
"Anyway, we're trying to track down some headcase who's been murdering psychics. Seeing as a bunch of them were from the Lost, they've agreed to not try and mutate us, and we've agreed not to bust them. At least until we get said headcase in a nice cushy suppresion cell in the Zigursky. Alright? And put those toothpicks away, please."

Yup, migraine. Ahhh hellfire...

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