A Fist, Raised

[EikoMagami]

As it turned out, Ariel could not carry Dr. Warts. She had the thrust and lift necessary, but she lacked the strength to support his weight. Instead, she risked bringing down the building around them as she blasted her way through the side of the building, pulling Dr. Warts along. He was fortunate enough not to have sustained serious injury from having part of the roof cave in on him. Once she got him to the EMT who had been patiently waiting on her to come out of the fire, she had raced back into the building and saw no one else alive. But something had been troubling her and she asked Dr. Warts about it.

"What did you mean when you said that this was all your fault?"

Dr. Wartz was pale and laying on a gurney, his mouth covered with a respirator. Ariel could hear sirens approaching. Apparently this event was important enough to send additional help. She didn't have much time.

"N-nothing," Dr. Warts wheezed. "It was just that I had left the front doors unlocked and we were working late."

Ariel didn't believe him. But he was pushed into the ambulance along with nurse or lab tech or whatever. As the door closed, Ariel's fire wings sprouted and she jumped into the sky just as a couple of police cars rounded the corner followed closely by a pair of fire trucks. She hadn't seen a fire truck in the area in years, not since the St. James Building caught fire when she was 11 years old.

She raced into the night sky as fast as she dared, taking a deliberately circuitous route to double back to the night club to fetch her clothing.

After landing on the far end of the alley across from the Electric Cowboy, Ariel made her way cautiously towards the street.

The flashing red and blue lights of Advent City's police department let her know that she wouldn't be getting her clothes back. They appeared to be waiting on her and taking witness statements. Backtracking down the alley, Ariel launched into the sky and headed towards home.

She was really going to miss that pea coat.

(( I'm going to take a break here and wait for everyone to catch up. This is how I see things playing out. Ariel stumbled onto a provider for some of the medical stuff the BIG BAD needs. Maybe Dr. Warts changed his mind about the supplies or whatever else. I also have an alternative track involving the theft of a medical transporter, an unusual thing to have on that side of town.

I would like to have Ariel somehow blamed for the fire or at least wanted for questioning. I would like for her very public debut to be the kind of thing to attract the attention of the Reciprocators, if possible. I'm going to post a side story - a news blurb (like I used to make on Formspring) that details how the media views Ariel Ablaze.

Lemme know if this is workable. I'm not married to any of it ))

[Black Starbeam]

The creak of leather was the only sound that could be heard in this evidence room tonight. The Black Starbeam glanced around the room, seeing only by the light of his own glowing eyes. The polarised lenses prevented him from being blinded by his own glow, but the extra light on his surroundings was welcome at times like tonight. According to Bolter, the Advent Police Department had a few leads on this case and it was time to start getting into the loop. Of course, there were other, more official ways of getting into the loop than breaking into a police station at 3am, but that was the kind of loop reserved for the American Anthem. Two-bit vigilantes didn't have the luxury of dropping by the nearest APD station and offering to assist.

He finally stumbled across the computer that stored the evidence log and dropped the glow on his eyes as he shifted the mouse to break the screensaver. The database showed up immediately as he smiled to himself. Someone was going to get in a lot of trouble if they found out that they'd left the computer logged in for any old freelance superhero to look at. Then again, someone in IT should have set up an automatic time out. He stopped coming up with solutions to improve security for a moment to focus on the task at hand. Case numbers and identifiers that might as well be arcane symbols danced onto and off the screen as he looked through the database. He was about to mutter a curse when he remembered where he was and what he was doing. The last thing he needed was to get caught in an evidence room. It was then that he heard the distinctive creak of the door opening and the whistling of a song he couldn't quite identify.

He quickly ducked behind one of the evidence racks, keeping the glow from his eyes off. He slowed his breathing, muffled though it was by his faceplate as he listened to the whistling, tracking the person making the noise through the room. The whistler made their way to the computer, where he heard a distinctly female voice mutter in frustration.

"Who th' 'ell's been on 'ere?' she muttered in aggravation in a thick Canadian? accent. No, not Canadian. Scottish, maybe Irish. It was tough to tell after such a long shift out on the streets. Her foot scraped against the ground as she rose and started to glance around the room to check who else had come in at this hour. Starbeam began to edge around the shelving unit, pressing his back against countless cardboard boxes containing artefacts of cases long past as he desperately tried to keep his movements silent. This exercise had been a complete failure, and it was time to cut his losses and start heading back towards the ventilation shaft that he'd used to sneak in. It was then that he heard a sudden inexplicable clatter matched with the sound of her footsteps started moving quicker and quicker towards him.

Her face popped around the corner, a shock of red hair concealing everything but her inquisitive look. He lit up his eyes suddenly, hoping beyond hope to scare the investigating APD officer off before she could look too closely at him. He snarled as inhumanly as possible but to no avail as she swung herself and the 12 gauge shotgun that she was carrying around the corner, levelling it at his chest. It was him that broke the tense silence first.

"You know, that'll do nothing to me." he snarled.

"'s werth a shot. Why'r ye in here?" she shot back, bringing the barrels up higher, pointing them directly at his eyes.

He sighed. He was already screwed, no point in trying to cover up his motives. "The serial killer. I'm investigating his case. I'd heard the APD had information beyond what I'd seen so far."

At that, the shotgun dropped. "Why didn'tche say so? I'm lookin' inta exactly th' same thing! Foller me." she swung herself back around the corner, holding the shotgun at her side as she walked back to the computer. He raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in demeanour and followed her around the corner to find her sitting at the computer, the shotgun resting on the desk - well within his reach.

"Aren't you worried I might shoot you?" he asked as he stepped forward, dimming the light from his eyes.

"'s not loaded. It ain't even real. 's a replica I pulled outta a evidence box." she pointed to the evidence box that lay scattered on the ground. "'s a good thing I'm wearin' me gloves. Lemme show ya what we got."

Her fingers danced across the keyboard as she brought up the evidence log and started discussing each piece individually from memory. There were two things the Black Starbeam was certain of. It was about to be a long night and this woman had been perfectly accurate when she said she'd been lookin' inta th' case.

[Dr. Qiang]

Hands thrust into the pockets of his featureless gray hoodie, Riot walked slowly beneath a section of elevated rail. It wasn't difficult keeping to the shadows in the warehouse district. What was difficult was dodging people moving to and from work while still keeping his eyes on the streets.

Not that "a black van" was much to go on. He was on a fool's errand and he knew it. But there was a chance he'd get lucky, right? He sighed quietly, he just didn't have enough information to work with. He figured he had a higher chance of bumping into the police and being driven back underground than he did of actually accomplishing anything. If he was smart, ReVolt would've gone to ground rather than pushing his luck with more kidnappings. He'd probably skipped town already, but one never knew.

"It'll take a miracle to find him now," Riot admitted to himself as his hands clenched into involuntary fists. It was frustrating, knowing that out there--probably not even far away--there was someone who absolutely deserved a punch in the face...

Since his younger brother's death, all Riot had left was his anger. He didn't want to turn that anger on anyone who didn't deserve it but he hated--hated!--being stymied so completely.