HOMELESS MUTANT QUEST Threads 1-25 By Crusty Jones X-men was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and are owned by Marvel (pls don’t sue him Mickey)

Thread #1 Thread #2 Thread #3 Thread #4 THREAD #5 THREAD #6 Thread 07 THREAD 08 Thread 09 Thread 10 Thread 11 Thread 12 Thread 13 Thread 14 Thread 15 Thread 16 Thread 17 Thread 18 Thread 19 Thread 20 Thread 21 Thread 22 Thread #23 Thread #24 Thread #25 Thread #1 Sometimes you like to just pretend that the day has gone by already. If you curl up tight enough, it can feel like midday already – like you’re in bed, at home, under a ceiling, and all the indignant screeching of the city is a whole window away. Sometimes, though, it’s just that bit harder to pull off.

You pull yourself up, brushing a thin layer of snow from your coat. It’s gotten deeper overnight. You slept under a fire escape, which kept you mostly alright, but everything else is under maybe an inch more snow than yesterday. Soon alleys like this one will be too cold at night. You’ll have to chance a shelter, or find some dickwad’s unused shed or something. Neither option strikes you as particularly appealing, but the alternative likely involves third degree frostbite.

In the street outside the alley, early-morning New York is already a flurry of random noise. You can smell hot dogs sizzling nearby, and there’s a guy peddling today’s Daily Bugle. That’d probably be you if hiring a genefreak wasn’t sorta like shooting yourself in the foot.

>[X] Try to find some honest work

>[X] Grab a paper

You’re feeling uncharacteristically good about yourself today. Maybe something legit’ll come up – something you can rely on to pay some bills if you ever scrounge up the kind of lifestyle that includes them.

You stride out into the street and drop $1.50 for a paper. As expected, there’s some shit about Spider- Man on the cover. The following pages cover some additions to the MCA – apparently certain private institutions have the right to bar you entry now, in addition to public ones. Shiny. That Xavier doctor guy that shows up on the news has made a few comments on it, but once you’ve read one ineffectual speech you’ve read ‘em all. There’s also an article about an escapee from SHIELD custody on the loose somewhere in upstate NY.

Nearby there are a few café’s opening right about that might have you, and there’s a pizza place on the corner. Then you could see if the Bugle needs people throwing papers at folk.

>STEALTH SET picked

>You have the advantages of , >INVISIBILITY: Lvl1 (chameleonic). Highly effective in darkness or when still. Less effective in motion or against careful eyes. No heat-masking, retains shadow. >ENHANCED SENSES: Lvl1. You have perfect night vision. Your hearing, smell, and touch are just above peak human.

>The STEALTH SET has the potential to level up these abilities or branch out into secondary mutations.

>You have the disadvantages of, >MULTISPECTRAL EYES >POINTED EARS >PSEUDOSCALES AT JOINTS, HANDS, AND COLLAR

>[X] Bugle

You decide that the Bugle could always use more people. Maybe after a few months of peddling papers you might be able to move up to taking pictures, pictures of Spider-Man. God knows you need some kind of mutant juju to get a good shot of that creepy dude.

You make your way towards the nearest underground station, but grind to a halt when you notice a new sign hanging over the entrance, declaring that mutants found utilizing the services could face prosecution.

>[X] Walk

You take a moment to make sure your shades are in place, and like any semi-self-respecting hobo you have a hood to draw over your head during cold nights. So a short walk among the good folk of NY shouldn’t be too eventful.

As it happens, it isn’t. People are busy most times of year, and with the Christmas lights popping up all around town, they’re getting extra distracted. You fade into the background without the help of your mutant powers.

Eventually you arrive at the Daily Bugle, feeling just a little worse for wear. There’s no bigass sign declaring that you can go take your mutie ass elsewhere, so you edge on in. The lobby is semi-bustling with people heading in to work, but there’s a lady at a desk that looks relatively unoccupied. You gulp, and – >Hunger Level: 7/10 Roll a D20 to attempt to hide your more visible mutant traits (assuming you're hiding). With your shades on and hood up, this is a DC10 test. Without the hood, DC12, and without the shades, DC18.

Rolled 18 >Success!

"Excuse me Miss, if it doesn’t trouble you may I ask if there're any job opportunities here?"

She looks up from whatever’s on her monitor and gives you a long stare. There’s no particular revulsion there, so you’d guess that your homo superior (yeah, right) status has gone unnoticed. The general wear and tear of the streets, however, has not. You can see the pity flaring up in her eyes. Thank God you’re the young type of hobo, not the crusty Santa type.

“Sure, honey. We always need people selling papers. It’s not steady, and today’s issue’s out, but I can sign you up for a spot tomorrow. You got a name?”

>[X] Take the job.

“John… James… Green.” She mouths the words as she scrawls them down amongst a group of other names. “There you go, John. Check in early tomorrow morning and we’ll have something for you.”

You thank her and make for the exit, your name on the register and a somewhat renewed sense of self- worth in your chest. Some dweeb with glasses and a camera gives you a quizzical look on the way out, but otherwise nobody seems to notice that you’ve finagled your way into a bit of honest work.

Your waltz across the city took a fair bit of time, but it’s still just before midday. You're getting kinda hungry.

>[X] Or at least a Macky D's

Welp, oddly enough, there’s no McDonalds in sight. But there is a Burger King, which is fine by you.

You slink on in and join the queue. The place is bustling with big eaters, a fact that sends a nervous shudder down your everything. You’re not a fan of crowds. You’re especially not a fan of the little sign over the top of the counter stating that Burger King reserves the right to turn away mutant customers or potential employees. But by the time you’ve noticed it, you’re up, and there’s a spotty kid grinning at you and asking how the King can help you today.

>Roll to hide your mutation. Same DC as before. Rolled 15 >Success

>[X] Large meal.

Your hood is secure, and with it, your identity. You order a large meal and hand over a bunch of the grubby notes in your wallet.

You don’t have to wait long before a teenaged squawk announces that your meal is ready, and you bundle it up. The place is actually filtering out a bit now, the crowds becoming a little more tolerable – you’d guess a whole bunch of people just realized that their lunch break is over. There are a few empty tables. Or there’s the streets.

>Current Funds: $16.50 >You still have that newspaper rolled up in a jacket pocket.

You decide to take a chance and sit down at one of the nearby booths. Nobody’s noticed you so far, and if they do, you can always just fade out and bolt it.

You start ploughing through your meal. It’s warm, it’s greasy, it’s Burger King. It fills a hole. As you eat, you get the chance to read a little more of that paper you’ve got tucked away. There’s been an admonishment from Captain America on the latest MCA addendums, which is pretty cool. People tend to listen to that guy. A little subsection near the back seems to be implicating that The Kingpin is involved in the recent flood of mutant-targeted drugs on the market, but as usual, there’s nothing concrete.

>Hunger Level: 3/10

>Roll a D20. Random event chart, yo Rolled 4

>4 >For future reference: As they’re not really rated from ‘good to bad’ via highest to lowest number, but rather full of totally random outcomes, Random Event rolls take the first roll, no exceptions.

You lick the last specks of burger-grease from your semi-scaly fingertips, recalling vaguely how your mother used to strictly forbid that you succumb to the seductions of fast food. You fucking hated that, back then. All the other kids had their stupid McDonald’s parties (hey, that’s something you don’t see no more), while you sat out and munched on celery, silently fuming at the matriarchal injustice of –

Something beyond the nasal muck of grease and ketchup and meat trips your sense of smell up. It’s this sterile something, almost like nightshade, or cyanide, and flecked with that queasy-clean hospital smell. Not Burger King at all.

It clings to the trail of four men that have sat down at various tables around the restaurant. They’re all in suits, and they’re reading papers. None of them are eating. And they’re all wearing the same rubbery green gloves. They smell so wrong it's almost sickening.

>[X] Get up quietly and leave.

Aw shit.

For a second, you panic. Then you stop panicking. You slow down. They smell all kinds of wrong and they look shifty as hell and those gloves give you the heebie jeebies but maybe they’re not there for you.

You finish licking your fingers, trying to maintain the air of a casual patron, and stand up. As you begin to make your way towards the door, the one sitting closest to the exit sets down his paper and slides out of his booth. You’re pretty sure you see another move in the corner of your eye, too

>Roll to not fade out instinctually. DC 15 Rolled 1

>Hilarious Failure

Oh man. You know that feeling. That’s what going all invisible feels like.

Three things seem to happen at once. The men behind you get up noisily and quickly. The one in front stiffens up in clear surprise, reaching into his jacket for something. And a goddamn Burger King tray, along with about half a burger and some chips, sails over your shoulder and strikes him squarely in the face.

There’s some girl behind you running for the exit. And the men still standing have drawn long, tubular firearms of some kind from their jackets. You reckon you’ve got about half a second before someone screams.

And to make things worse, that fade out was just a quick flicker – just long enough for people to notice. You’re visible again.

Rolled 20 You probably should've saved that for later.

Nah, just kidding, I'll let you have that for the reflex check I was about to make you guys take. Just this once. >[X] Fade, sneak out, follow. >[X] Hero.

You close your eyes for an instant and think of being small, unnoticed, and invisible. You feel the change grip you and push yourself up against one of the nearby tables – just in time to avoid a pair of swollen, metal darts fired in your direction.

The girl kicks the previously trayed suit while he’s down and rushes out the door. For a moment, the others seem about to give chase, but appear to remember that you could be anywhere in the room and start aiming their weapons in random vectors. You take the opportunity to grab the weapon half-drawn from the fallen man’s jacket and take a few wild shots with it as you back out the door.

>Roll a D20 to cap some motherfuckers >DC17 >+1 bonus due to enhanced senses. Rolled 16

>Mediocre Bog Standard On the Line Success!

The weapon hisses and jolts unexpectedly hard in your grip. You mostly sent darts over the counter, but one shot strikes home, putting a needle straight into the neck of one of the suited weirdos. He goes down like the string on a popped balloon, eyes rolling upwards and mouth frothing. The others hunker down to take cover, but you’re gone like the wind.

You run after the girl, possibly because she might know what’s going on, possibly because you want to be absolutely sure that those guys weren’t after you, and possibly because the adrenaline is doing most of your steering.

She takes you for quite a ride, taking several turns at major streets before running into one of New York’s convenient alleys. Now that you’re not focusing on dudes with guns or gun-ish objects, you get a good look at her. She’s a little younger than you, with dark hair and green eyes, and is wearing jeans alongside a godawful goth chick corset-y thing. As you slow down, she starts sniffing the air.

With a little coaxing, your chameleonic cloak clears out, revealing you. You quickly put your hands up and drop that weird dart-shooter thingy – just in time, apparently, because she looked about ready to pounce. And you’re pretty sure she growled, which is a sort of weird thing to do.

“Hey, look, I’m not gonna hurt you.” You say, hastily adding: “I just wanna know what happened back there, okay?”

>Diplomacy Check >DC 12 >+1 for dropping arms >+1 for assisting earle Rolled 13 >Success!

She loosens up somewhat at your show of non-violence, though you get the distinct impression that there’s only so far from ‘on edge’ that this person can go. Which isn’t exactly all too unrelatable to you, really – you did just get the jitters and try to leave a Burger King on account of some really funky-smelling dudes, after all.

“Alright.”

She stares at you. And keeps staring, and there’s another distinct impression – that this is not a people person.

>[X] Introduce yourself. >[X] “Who are you?” >[X] “Hell, who WERE those creepy dudes?”

“Right, okay, well… my name’s JJ Green.” Whose manners, let it be noted, remain untarnished by homelessness. The opposite seems to be true of your partner in crime(?), however, and an awkward moment sidles on by before you add “And your name is…?”

“Laura.”

“Alright. And who were those creepy fellows back there?”

“Agents of a clandestine research facility operating under the purview of the US government.” She answers, in a flat tone unpunctuated by the sarcasm or humour you’d expect attached to such a ludicrous statement.

What do you even say to something like that?

>[X] "I’m guessing they were looking for you?” >[X] Written in stuff.

“Makes me glad I’m not a taxpayer.” Seemed like a smooth response. For a smooth operator such as yourself. “I’m guessing they were looking for you, then? They’re not just picking mutants up off the steet?”

She nods.

“Correct. They may presume that you are assisting me, but you should be able to avoid them in future simply by staying away.”

>[X] “Well, I can’t really do that.” (+1 karma) >[X] “Do you even have somewhere to go? Anything?”

“Well now…” You sigh deeply and sit down on one of the nearby dumpsters. This seems like it might be the longest and weirdest conversation you’ve had in quite some time. “I can’t really do that.”

You could, of course. But not in good conscience.

“Do you even have somewhere to go? Anything?”

She seems puzzled, and perhaps a little anxious, for a second, before returning to her flat demeanour and answering:

“I am considering my options for the immediate future.”

>[X] “That sure is fancy way of saying ‘I’m homeless’.” >[X] "C'mon, maybe I can get you a job at the bugle chucking papers. They hire homeless people. I'm living proof!" >[X] “Why are they after you anyway?”

“That sure is fancy way of saying ‘I’m homeless’,” you reply.

You sort of hoped that would lighten the mood a bit. It didn’t. But you persevere nevertheless:

"C'mon, maybe I can get you a job at the Bugle chucking papers. They hire homeless people. I'm living proof!"

She seems to consider it for a moment, but shakes her head.

“That would be too public. Someone would recognize me.”

You tut quietly and then just blurt out the question that’s been harrying you since this whole government whatever thing tale got dropped into your lap:

“What do they even want you for, anyway? What makes you so special?”

She seems to shut down even further at this, if possible, looking away for the first time since the conversation began. Touchy subject, apparently.

“…They have an investment in me.”

>[X] “I’m sorry, what? Could you be a little less vague?” Empathy Check, DC 15 Rolled 19

>Success! >I bet you thought this was going to give you new information or something >silly hobo

“I’m sorry, what? Could you be a little”–

You start up, but something in her posture stops you. Now that her exceedingly green eyes are pointed elsewhere, you’re suddenly more aware of the way she scratches nervously at her arm; how the moment the question came up she folded up protectively. At first you assumed her some kind of stoic, and you were correct up to a point, but something’s telling you that this could be one of the most acutely miserable people you’ve ever met.

Which is saying something, as you are a hobo, living for the past four years primarily in the company of other hobos.

You drop it. She looks up, somewhat surprised, and seems to unfurl just a little.

>You gained +1 Trust with Laura Kinney!

“Do you really want to help?”

>[X] Yes.

You lean back. This is a lot to process.

Your life has changed almost too much in the past twenty-four hours. You actually got a real job (or some kind of work, anyway), for one. And now this is here, and it’s all huge, and possibly threatening to annihilate everything good that’s happened to you today. You don’t know this person – not even a little. Despite what your brief stint back at Burger King seemed to indicate, you’ve never been a brave person. You wouldn’t be homeless if you were. You’d be better, and probably richer. You wouldn’t be afraid of a goddamn lit match.

This morning you felt ready for complication, but this much complication? Are you ready for whatever this is?

“Yeah. Sure.”

>THREAD 01: END

Thread #2

You are John James Green. You’re a mutant, and a vagrant.

You’ve woken up early this morning. No sleeping in today – you’ve got actual work to do, of a sort. The Bugle wanted you in at six thirty, on the dot, and that’s precisely when you intend to arrive. It’s JJ Green’s first day at (honest) work in a stretch of four-or-so-years, and he’ll be damned if he’s coming in late.

You stretch and pull yourself up. If that cheap piece of plastic tat on your wrist is still working, its 5:45, AM. Snow’s deepened again. Quarter of an inch? Half? You’re not sure, but it’s definitely getting thicker.

Your abode for the night was a little niche round the back of a Turkish delicatessen, bout half an hour’s walk from the Bugle. Opposite you, Laura is cooped up against one of the big metal bins that house the street’s leftovers. You’re not quite sure what to do about her. You promised to help her out, maybe keep a look out for some work, but apparently she can’t get too public... and, well… she’s not what you’d describe as a people person.

>Current Funds: $16.50 >Hunger Level: 4/10

>[X] Wake up Laura. “Hey.” You stoop down and tap lightly on her shoulder. “You awake?”

Her eyes edge open, startlingly green against the mottled greys and whites of NY’s Christmastime. She nods very slightly, shrugging off the languor of sleep surprisingly quickly. You can’t really be certain, but you get the vague impression that she might have been awake long before you ever were. Just… powered down, sort of. Waiting.

“Hey there. Well, I need to, y’know, go in…”

She doesn’t respond.

>[X] “Want to get a quick bite?”

“Want to get a quick bite? There’s a falafel stall nearby.” You’re a little hungry, and she should be too – and you’re kinda not sure if she actually has any money of her own.

She stares for a moment, and answers with a curt: “Yes, thank you.”

You two wander out into the streets and stroll toward one of the nearby stalls. You drop $4.00 on a pair of meatball falafels and munch them on the sidewalk. Yours is over almost as soon as it drops into your

hands, but she talks small, measures bites. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen anyone eat a falafel so damn slowly.

>Current Funds: $12.50 >Hunger Level: 3

>[X] “This your first Christmas on the streets?”

"This your first Christmas on the streets?" You ask, as she barely makes her way towards the centre of her falafel.

She pauses in mid-bite and nods. You suspected as much. Her clothes look sort of new, or at least well looked-after. And you can't quite get a bead on her age, but she must be at least a year or two younger than you.

"You?"

You shake your head. No, this is certainly not your first Christmas on the streets.

"Welp, let's hope it's also your last, eh?" You add, standing up. As you toss the wrapper, she keeps her eyes on you, and eventually asks, in a flat tone:

"What about you?"

>[X] Tell her you can't imagine celebrating Christmas without your family anyway.(Will check, DC 15) Rolled 16 >Success!

That’s a question, that. You know the answer, but it’s been wrapped up in your head for so long, and the wrappings are made of fire. You glance about uneasily, as if you’re expecting someone to be listening in. They’re not, of course – nobody cares about two deadbeats on the side of the road, not when there’s shopping to be done and lights to go up. But you just can’t help it.

“Well, it’s not Christmas without family.”

That’d be the first time you’ve mentioned them in… what? Three years? You don’t even know anymore.

You cough pointedly, as if to close the topic.

“Listen, I’ve gotta be off. You gonna be alright?”

She nods. “I can wait in this area. There are three workable vantage points.”

“…Right.”

>[X] Hop on the underground to the Bugle. Get there early. You book it into the nearest subway station. The Bugle’s only two stops from here – assuming no incredibly ill-timed delays, you should be there all bright an’ early. Which probably won’t do anything miraculous to your pay or your hours, but as of yesterday morning you’re the new JJ Green. You try.

As you filter in around the early-morning crowd waiting for their train, you notice a pair of officers wearing bright yellow bands around their arms. They’re moving through the crowd, checking ID and pulling back hoods. A chill patters down your spine and you remember the notice you saw over the subway yesterday – the one declaring that mutants found utilizing the public transport services would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Gimme a D20 for fading without notice. >DC14. >+1 bonus, due to crowding. Rolled 18

>Dayumn boi. You slick.

>[X] Try to leave the way you came. >[X] Invisible!

You begin to detach yourself from the crowd as nonchalantly as possible. Your train comes barrelling out of the tunnel, and that’s your window of opportunity.

The cold strangeness of invisibility washes over you. For a moment you freeze, certain that someone must have seen your quick trip beyond the standard laws of physics, but nobody bats an eye. You make your way out of the station, chiding yourself inwardly for being so stupid and forgetful. You just saw the goddamn sign yesterday.

Well, that was a waste of time.

>[X] Run.

Fuck it, running’s good for you. You run.

It’s not too far, but you’re breathing pretty hard when you get there. You humming select bites from the Rocky soundtrack for the first half of the way, plus something Italian that everyone kinda knows, but the run took that out of you soon enough. Winter’s been tough and you’ve mostly been making a point to conserve energy. You shed your invisibility and slow down into a jog as you approach the threshold. The lady at the counter recognizes you and quickly cups her palm around the she’s talking into, pointing towards one of the doors to the side.

You smile and head on through. Inside is a thin corridor, made thinner still by the stacks of warm papers folded in haphazard piles along one wall. Somewhere in the distance, printers hum in steady, arterial unison.

And there’s this scrawny kid heading towards you with the biggest damn stack of papers you’ve ever seen.

>Hunger Level: 4 >[X] Lend a hand.

You stoop in to help before the kid does some kind of irreparable damage to himself. For a moment you’re surprised at how much weight he’s actually pulling, but you’ve committed now, and you’d look like a total ass if you just decided that actually he could probably handle it after all.

You manoeuvre the leaning tower of Bugles off to the side and set it down. The kid sights heavily and rubs his back, grinning lamely at you.

“Thanks for that. I’m not exactly in my element here.” He stands up straight and looks you over.

Hey, you know this guy. Sort of. He gave you a bit of a stare on your way out yesterday. You’re not sure that he recognizes you at all, but it’s definitely him.

“You’re picking up, right?”

>[X] “Yeah.” >[X] Written in stuff.

“Yeah, I should be down as John Green. Nice to meet you, Mr...”

"Parker. Peter. Nice to meet you too." He replies, shuffling past you, picking between the piles of waiting papers, and consults a board pinned to one of the walls.

"It always this hectic around here?" You ask.

“Yeah, kinda. Some days are worse than others. This isn't usually my beat at all. John James Green, right?”

“That’s me.”

“Alright then, you’re pretty much good to go. You can pick up any one of these stacks.” He motions vaguely with his hands to the accumulating paper-bulwark. “You’ve got an alright spot. Prince Street Station. You know your way, right?”

>[X] Try to get somewhere closer. You really don’t want to risk the subway. (Persuasion, DC15) Rolled 14 >FAILURE

Crap. That's not good.

“Well, actually, I was kinda wondering if maybe you could switch me around a bit?” Christ, this is awkward. You feel like a schoolboy without an excuse for some nonspecific tardiness. “I mean, I know the way, I just… kind of need to be put somewhere a bit closer.”

Parker grimaces and gives you a vaguely apologetic look. You know this look well – it’s the “Sorry, dude, no spare change” look. He kinda seems like he actually means it, though. Maybe.

“I don’t know… JJJ can be pretty weird about these things. I’m kinda a glorified intern, so he can kick me out over pretty much whatever.”

>[X] Pull your hood/take off your shades. Come clean. Maybe he’ll understand. (Will check, DC15) Rolled 1

>CRITICAL FAIL >no karma

There’s sweat on your palms. You’re gonna do this. You’re gonna… take your hood off. You open your mouth to say something and suddenly there’s this great, black, void in your chest – this lump of nauseating nothing. When was the last time you did this? You lick your lips. That dark lump just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, pushing down into your stomach, into your lungs, into everything. You feel your own heart stuttering.

“...Hey? Mr. Green?” You blink. Parker's talking. You’re just standing there. Your hands haven’t even moved. Shit. “You’re kinda spacing out here…”

“Igottago.” You mumble. And you turn, and you walk, and you walk, and you walk straight out. He shouts after you but you don’t even hear it right. You just walk right out of the Bugle and into the street and onto the sidewalk. You bury your face in your hands and you let that hot sensation of holding back tears just eat up your skull.

God dammit. Fuck. You were supposed to get paid today. Fuck everything. Fuck everyone.

>[X}Write in

You suck in the cold air. Need to get your head clear. You could say something about getting mugged there, or – or whatever. Christ, you can’t believe you’re almost fucking crying. You’re not a child. You’re eighteen. Ish. You’re not a goddamned child.

You stand up, going over a list of possible excuses in your head. None of them are too great, but you really, really need that money –

Peter comes out the door. He’s coming towards you. Aw, shit…

You make sure your glasses are in place and try to look vaguely alright.

“H-hey, sorry.” You begin. “That was just, well, something that happened at that station sort of”–

“Don’t worry about it.” He interjects. “Look, I’ll talk to Vanessa, and get you a spot nearby tomorrow? That okay?”

>[ ] “I can still make it today. I’m fine now.” (Bluff, DC15) Rolled 15 >Success!

“I can still make it today. I’m fine now.”

He doesn’t look too convinced. You suppose your little nervous breakdown might have had something to do with that. But, fortunately for you, he seems to decide that he doesn’t need all too much convincing.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Yeah. You’ve gotta do this.

“Well… alright.”

You blush red hot with embarrassment as you trundle back in with him, take your stack, and head out. You make sure to thank him on your way out. He tells you the job is $7.50 an hour, and you’re going from seven till three. That’s sixty bucks when you get back to the Bugle. Okay. Worth all the shit. Definitely worth all the shit.

Stealth check, DC13. >+5 bonus, for being fucking invisible Rolled 15

>Smooth. >[X] Fade out and jump the ticket machines.

You fade out of sight and make your way to the closest station. Jumping the ticket stands is laughably easy – the moment you’re over them you find yourself wondering why the hell you didn’t just do this before. There aren’t even any of those Special Inspectors with the yellow armbands around.

You catch your train, managing to get one of the less crowded carriages. You hunker up in one corner and stay perfectly still, which works for a while. But it’s a few stations before Prince Street, and you’re starting to feel that dull, quizzical ache in the back of your head that seems to generally tell you that you’ve been ghosting a little too long.

>[X] Bite your lip and concentrate. >[X] Just long enough to get off at the next stop and walk.

You shut your eyes, bite your lip, and concentrate on staying invisible. At least until the next stop.

It works. By the time you reach the next station, the buzzing in your head is a drowsy inferno and you feel like someone’s been slowly but surely adding little weights to the hem of your coat. But you got there, unseen and unprosecuted.

>Hunger Level: 5

You shed your invisibility as you step out the station mouth. You walk a short way to Prince Street…

And… you get to work.

>oh gee roll a D20 >rearranging all these Random Event charts is probably gonna get tiresome after a while Rolled 11

>Nothing. >Lucky mutant scum.

>I should probably note, for newcomers, that Random Event rolls use the first roll only. As they’re not high-to-low-good-to-bad. They’re just random. >Bet you wish you hadn't rolled those twenties, mutie scum.

Eight hours is a long time to be handing out papers. You kinda forget how tiring it can be just standing up – especially on a cold day. Still, it sort of feels good to be doing something legit for once. You’re JJ Green, and you sell newspapers. Much like JJ Jameson, actually, just… on a much smaller scale. You’re not fancy, but you do something and in exchange people give you money. And the money doesn’t go towards getting you away from whatever you did to get it. It goes towards keeping you alive.

Which is pretty nice.

You finish up at three and take a seat on the curb. You’re hungry, your legs ache, but you’ve done your job.

>Hunger Level: 6

>[X] Take a break, get some food. >[X] You’ve got a paper left. Might as well read it

You decide to grab something to eat before you head back. Laura’s gotta be hungry by now, too.

After walking a short distance you manage to track down an IHOP. It’s got one of those cunty “BEWARE, MUTANTS, YOU AIN’T WANTED” signs up, but fuck it. You’re legit now and you ain’t got anything to worry about so long as you think you don’t.

You stroll in and order $7 of delicious bagged foodstuffs. While you wait you read your leftover paper.

Surprisingly, there’s no Spider-Man on page one. He’s been pushed back to page 3. You sort of expected your exploits of yesterday to show up, but you probably shouldn’t have. This is New York, home of the Avengers. Mad is mundane. Instead, the front page is a story about a drug-fuelled mutant nova at a restaurant upper state. Kinda disturbing. You know the score with this stuff – people generally call it Jack. It’s a feel-good pill that just so happens to grant mutants stints of unusual control over their abilities. Problem is, every so often, you lose control completely. It’s been around for a while, but you’ve never heard of a meltdown this public. Really not good news.

You get your food and head out.

>Current Funds: $5.5 >$60 in the wings.

>[X] Walk back to the Bugle.

You ran to the Bugle this morning. Now you’ll walk back there this afternoon. It’s the new improved you, or something. Light on your feet and… not afraid to do some exercise.

Of course, it takes just over an hour. Luckily IHOP as supplied you with all you need to get from A to B without collapsing out of sheer exhaustion. By the time you make it all the way back, your portion is mostly gone, and Laura’s is looking awful pretty, but you abstain in the name of basic human decency.

>Hunger Level: 4

>[X] Do it. More money! >[X] Track down Laura.

You check in at the lobby with Vanessa, you get your $60, and you get the option to sign on for early tomorrow too.

You get your name jotted down for early morning tomorrow and head out. While you’re at it, you make a note to ask if Parker happens to be around, seeing as you figure you kinda owe him, but apparently he had to take off on some kind of emergency. Bummer, you hope it’s not serious.

Heading back out, you walk back towards your meeting point with Laura. It strikes you that you didn’t actually ask her where, exactly, her workable vantage points were. That could be a bit of a problem.

You sweep past the alley you slept in last night. Nobody.

You’re actually getting a little worried when someone whistles several stories above you. You look up, and a scrunched-up falafel wrapper hits you squarely in the face.

You can’t help but smile.

>THREAD: 02 END

Thread #3

You are John James Green, a mutant and a vagrant.

You’ve just returned home from your first day of honest work in closing-on-four years. ‘Home’, of course, is used here in the loosest possible capacity – since fourteen home has been wherever you are at any given time, and right now you’re atop a six-story apartment block, leaning out over the darkening streets. Snow’s starting up again, peppering the closing dark of the evening with tiny motes of white. Occasionally it catches some of the last rays of sunlight and seems to burn silver. Like white phosphorous.

Laura chose this spot. Apparently she likes high places. She’s currently sitting on the ledge, munching her way through her half of a seven dollar menu.

A shiver tickles at your shoulders. New York is going to get much colder over the coming days. You’ve got more money in your pockets than you’ve had in months, and you’re signed up for another morning peddling papers for the Bugle tomorrow, but that money ain’t gonna keep you warm.

>Hunger Level: 4 >Current Funds: $65.5 >Time: 5:45

>[X] Look for some work for Laura.

Welp, it’s never too cold for job searching. You ask Laura if she’s up for it – she looks up from her food and, as usual, seems to turn what you’re saying over in her head. Eventually she nods and starts to pack away what’s left of her meal (which, you can’t help but notice, is quite a lot).

You two head down one of a nearby fire escape and out onto the streets. She keeps her head down, as if allergic to eye contact, and you suddenly recall that anything too public is strictly off-limits.

So, what kind of options do you have here?

>[X] Bars/clubs

“You think a bar would be good? Y’know, somewhere small?” You can’t help but feel vaguely lame. You’re not Jason Bourne – your experience with laying low is that, generally, you don’t need to do much to slip into the cracks of the civilized world. But nobody’s looking for you, so it comes easy. You’re not sure exactly how the international spy game works (or if that’s even what this is). “I guess… you can’t use your name?”

“I have several identifications.” Laura notes, as you cross the street. “Small and quiet could work.”

“Right.”

Small and quiet it is. Not two things New York does all too well, generally speaking, but take the right steps in the right places and you’ll find that the collective hubbub eventually drools together into a kind of artificial silence.

After just over an hour, you track down a little dive that looks vaguely like someone airlifted it out of a small town in Ireland. It’s kind of cramped, and when you walk in you find that the atmosphere takes a distinct turn towards the obnoxiously humid, but it’s certainly quiet.

A woman in her mid-forties eyes you from behind the bar.

>[X] Ask if they need someone to mop up or clean dishes. >[X] Ask Laura what age her ID’s state. You know she’s not eighteen, but one of them might be. >[X] Write in.

“Um…” Man, that lady has a stare. Maybe she’s just not seen one of them mythical customer things in a while. And her jaw is set in a permanent scowl due to a tragic case of being an old person. You lean in a little closer to Laura. “How old do those ID’s of yours say you are? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure this place doesn’t sell milk and cookies.”

“They were made to look feasible.” She states, veering back a little as you lean in.

“Okay then.” No bartending, then. Pity, really – this hole is probably one of only three places in New York where she’d be considered comparatively personable.

You walk up to the barkeep, or owner, or whatever she is.

“Excuse me, Miss.” She snorts. Maybe she’s a ma’am instead. “I was wondering if you have any job opportunities for my sister here? She’s okay with washing up or mopping or whatever."

>D20 to twist up the truth a little >DC15 Rolled 14 >Shamfuru dispray

She leans across the bar at you, driving her eyeballs into your skull. It’s not pleasant – for a moment you feel a very slight urge to fade out, before she promptly turns toward Laura. There’s this tiny smile in her grimace now, like she’s just unwrapped a birthday present, or untied a tiny Gordian Knot.

“Can you flip burgers, darlin’?” She pushes it out between her teeth. Laura immediately looks at you as if to say ‘No’.

“Yep.” You edge in. “Yeah, she can do that.”

The woman grins toothily.

“Alrigh’. I can take her on for a bit. Come on.” She motions for Laura to step around the bar. “Let’s show you the kitchen.”

>[X] “Er, am I coming too?” >[X] Sit down to wait.

“Er, am I coming too?” You interject, as the woman manoeuvres Laura toward the dingy little entranceway behind the bar. This all seems a little uncanny. Maybe even a bit The Hills Have Eyes.

“You applying for a job here too?” She nearly barks, staring you down with eyes that are at least 70-80% evil. Laura shoots you a brief, harried look over her shoulder before they both disappear into the festering innards of the establishment.

Gingerly checking for any unpleasant fluids, you take a seat at the bar. That… went sort of well, you suppose? Weirdness aside, there’s a job on the table, so that’s something. You could’ve sworn that banshee-woman had you pegged for the homeless wreck you are at first, so things certainly didn’t go as bad as they could.

The guy sitting right next to you sets down his mug and a sharp jolt of surprise snaps along your spine. He wasn’t there a second ago. He most certainly wasn't there a second ago.

>D20 to avoid fading instinctually >DC13 >+2 bonus for added control Rolled 1 + 2

>CRIT FAIL >FAIL MUTIE FAIL

You blink out for a second. You just can’t help it, man – it’s a reflex for you.

What’s worse is that so is jumping and making loud noises. So that’s what you do. You kick yourself straight off your seat and onto the floor (the suspiciously damp floor). You feel yourself flicker back into the world of the visible as your back plants against the wood, and your brain suddenly finds itself divided on the matter of whether to run from the boots about to stomp your mutie ass or just curl up and let it wash over you.

But the boots don’t come. Instead, the man at the bar just chuckles into his drink.

“You really should’ave gotten that under control by now, Green.” You know that voice. “Don’t worry, boyo. Nobody’s noticed.”

It’s true. There’s a few patrons sitting near the back wall, but they haven’t batted an eye. You look up, and you know exactly who you’re about to not see.

Creeper. Or The Creeper, to some. You’ve met him more than a few times, back when you weren’t so shy of less decent work. You’d know his face by now if that were possible – you’re not sure how it works, exactly, but you can never quite see it. When you look up your gaze stops at the top of that stupid green tie he wears and just refuses to go any further. That’s his power, his mutant shtick – you don’t notice stuff about him unless he wants you to. It’s not invisibility. You just… don’t see him. Until you do.

He is, of course, an awful crook and exactly the kind of person you’ve been trying to steer your life away from.

“I like your girlfriend.” He breathes it out like smoke. You don’t know how, but everything becomes a profanity when it comes out of this guy’s mouth. “I could probably set her up with something far more lucrative than washing out this… establishment.”

>[X] “You stay away from her.” (Courage check, DC13) Rolled 19 >Pass >[X] “Listen, whatever you’re after, I’m not in. I’m clean now.”

You bristle at the implication in his tone. What a piece of shit.

This guy always freaked you out, and for good reason. He turned up three years ago, and within a matter of months he was one of the biggest distributors of Jack in this corner of the Big Apple. People used to just disappear when he didn’t get his way. But that stuff is the past for you now. You’re not part of the same circus anymore, and you’ll be damned if you’re gonna tread softly around this no-faced motherfucker.

“You stay the hell away from her.” With any luck that sounded as threatening as you imagined it being. “And stay the hell away from me, too. I don’t even want to smell what you’re selling, Creeper.”

You can’t see it, but feel his smile. God, you have no idea how he does that, but it shits you up like nothing else.

“Fair enough.” He slurps down the last of his drink in one overburdened heave. “I’m just here to chat, anyhow. You’ve spending a lot of time in this stretch as of late, yeah?”

>[X] "...You've been following me?" >[X] "What of it?"

You flinch a little. You don’t like what he just said. You don’t like it at all.

“…You’ve been following me?” Even you can’t deny that some of the thunder has seeped its way out of your voice. The idea of this guy just a step or two behind you… it just doesn’t sit well with the parts of your brain dedicated to self-preservation.

“Not me personally.” He replies, leaning over the bar to help himself to another pint of beer. “But yeah, kind of. Pays to keep an eye on the local talent, boyo.”

“Alright…” No, it’s not alright, but you don’t want to let it show. “Why the interest?”

He takes a sip, and you feel that smile again.

“It’s not a particular interest in you – no offence, Green, you’re a dear and such. We're just not right for each other.” He slides his finger along the rim of his glass, eking a long, almost feminine whine from it. At the back of the bar the few patrons glance in your direction but don’t seem to register anything odd. “Two days ago, a trio of young rapscallions took off with far more of my product than they paid for. One of them turned himself into front page news,”– Today’s headline rushes back to you. That exploding mutant, the fire, the deaths –“and that’s not really so great for me. The other two were last seen not too far from here.”

>[X] “I haven’t seen them”

“I haven’t seen them, if that’s what you want to know.”

“That is indeed what I wanted to know.” He slides off his seat. Huh, that was surprisingly painless. "That said, though, I want you to know something too.”

Oh.

He leans down. He leans down right in your face – if you could, you’d staring straight into his eyes, but there’s his X-gene again, tilting your gaze towards your own chest. Unable to look up, you don’t notice his hand until it’s resting just under your throat. You breath in sharply, worms crawling under your skin. Suddenly you’re very much aware of just how vulnerable a position you’re in.

“You know who I work for, don’t you?” He slides his forefinger down your Adam’s apple, and then down your chest, before bringing it to rest on your abdomen. Even through your hoodie, your skin prickles at his touch. “If you do see these two, boyo, and if you keep it to yourself, then he’ll find you, and he’ll catch you, and then…”

Oh Christ, his hand’s on your knee. How’d it get there?

“…I might decide that we are right for each other, after all. You catch?”

>(any option below this point requires a DC10 courage check

Rolled 18

>Success! >[X] “Get the hell off me, Creeper.” >[X] PUNCH him off you, holy shit.

You’d spit straight in his face if it were physically possible.

“Get the hell off me, Creeper.”

He doesn’t budge. Instead you just feel his breath against your nose, and perceive vaguely the curve of a grin sitting just out of eyeshot. So you budge him yourself – you smack him straight in the imperceptible face, pitching him off you. He tumbles down onto the sodden floor, his drink exploding across the boards. The other drinkers look up again, but see nothing of interest.

That felt good.

“Hah.” He pulls himself up, patting down his irritatingly expensive jacket and sounding a little numb around the jaw. “That’s more a lot spine than I remember there being in you.”

Leaving his drink to soak into the woodwork, he strides toward the door, pausing just before passing beyond the threshold.

“Still, new direction or not, you should all likely on the lookout for those crazy kids. Those two are a big fat albatross, boyo, and believe me – you want me to deal with them before anyone else has to.”

And then he’s gone, sliding out of your perception as easily as he slides out of the door.

>Write in.

You pull yourself up, not eager to wait for the other patrons to notice that there’s suddenly some guy on the floor.

Shit, fucking Creeper. That’s a chapter of your life that had best remain closed from now on. In hindsight, the punch was kind of stupid – this guy could literally be standing right in front of you, after all, about to stab you straight through your eyes – but it couldn’t have been more satisfying. And some kind of mark had to be made. Something has to lock the door behind you, at some point, and maybe that’s going to take more than just peddling papers…

Your thoughts turn to the two junkies. You can sympathize, pretty much. You’ve never popped a Jack, since your powers mostly don’t seem to play up too bad, but you know there’s plenty with abilities they’d do anything to be able to handle, even at the risk of going right the other way and losing control completely.

You pull that train of thought into the station as Laura emerges. The smell of burger grease clings to her like the world’s most Midwestern cologne.

Suddenly, she stops halfway round the bar, and stares at you. And sniffs the air.

“Were you speaking with someone?”

>[X] “Oh, yeah. Not a pleasant guy. >[X] “Nah, it was nothing. You get the job?”

“Oh, yeah. Not a pleasant guy.” Understatement, but you’re not enthusiastic about regaling the girl with tales of your more shameful exploits. Or giving her the rundown on the sheer level of horrifying shit that tags along beside the name ‘Creeper’. Maybe later. Much, much later.

She wrinkles her nose slightly. “Smells like paint.”

That’s kinda funny. You were uncomfortably intimate with your old friend The Creeper a moment ago, and you didn’t smell any paint.

“Well, never mind that. You get the job?”

She nods, and – as if on cue – that grizzled woman-creature she disappeared with earlier emerges from the back, smiling triumphantly.

>[X] “Great. When’re you starting?”

Well, at least one good thing came of this whole mess.

“Great. When’re you starting?”

“Mrs. Clemence says I can start tomorrow. Five-thirty.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. You’re not entirely sure about this place, but maybe you can ghost around a bit for the first day, make sure everything’s fine. You’ve been getting pretty good at staying invisible for longer lately, might as well flex that X-gene a bit.

>[X] Hit some clothes shops

Not wanting to force ‘Mrs. Clemence’ to endure your company a second longer, you decide to check out some of the thrift shops a little further down town. You’ve got sixty-five shiny monies to spend, and while you’re relatively well covered by what you’ve got, you could always use a nice fuzzy scarf or something. Or maybe just one of those puffy-ass coats. Laura could probably use something of a wardrobe shift-up, too, seeing as she’s been running around in skinny jeans, that dreadful goth-teen corsetty thingy, and a skinny little leather jacket.

Laura thanks her new employer far more politely than she could possibly deserve, and you head off.

It takes you a little over half an hour to find a nice thrift shop. It’s pretty crowded (damn you, Christmastime), and you and Laura have to contest with a writhing pit of jostling elbows to check out anything at all. That said, you can see the back of the shop from here, and it looks way less crowded. You bet you could fade right in there and just lift whatever they might have back there.

Roll a D20 for a mystery test. DC 12. Rolled 12

>Easy peasy

>[X] Look for stuff for Laura. >[X] Look for a stuff for yourself.

Squeezing through the press of shoppers yields some rather fine rewards. You manage to find a bigger coat that wouldn’t look all too bad on you – got some rips on the inside, but that makes it kinda like you, and you aren’t so bad when you get down to it. Aside from that, you find a real well-stuffed hoodie; pretty much perfect for Laura, and some more covering boots to replace the dinky little things she’s currently wearing.

When you turn to ask her what she thinks, however, you notice that she’s staring straight down at the floor and holding both arms tight against her chest. She’s biting her lip pretty hard, too – in a second you might actually start seeing blood.

Not good with people. Right.

>[X]Buy your items and leave DC14. You have a +2 bonus for your current Relationship level with Laura. Rolled 18 + 2

You push your way back through the crowd to her, putting a tentative arm over her shoulder. She’s incredibly tense – for a moment, you’re certain she’s about to jerk away and start pushing her way to the door, but instead she just stands there, the sinews in her arms and legs screaming silently.

"Just hang in there a few more minutes, Laura. You need these clothes even more'n I do."

It takes a few seconds, but eventually she starts walking. You two get a few odd stares, but you’ve got your hood up, so most just seem content to write whatever’s going on off as not their problem. Eventually, you get your stuff paid for and make your way out.

All at once, the springs coiling through her visibly unwind, as if the winter breeze just swooped in and swept them all away. She stays close for a while, though.

And she doesn’t talk for a bit, either.

>THREAD 03: END

Thread #4

You are John James Green, mutant vagrant and aspiring self-help example.

Presently, you’re trudging through the gathering snow of NY’s unforgiving Christmastime, adrenaline still rattling from a close call involving a thrift store, a jacket you really really wanted, and the small demophobic girl padding softly across the street beside you.

Bulging over the apartments nearby, the giant D and B of the Daily Bugle is slowly disappearing under a sheet of cascading white. You’ve got your puffy new coat, and Laura's slipped on the hoodie you bought for her, but it’s not gonna be enough. In your expert opinion (hey, four years homeless makes you an expert, alright?), you’ve got about three days before sleeping on the streets is no longer remotely viable.

Then, of course, there’s the matter of Creeper. Creeper, the mutant drug-lord sitting squarely under the protective umbrella of the one and only Wilson Fisk. You want nothing to do with him, but he’s eager to catch a pair of runaway thieves last seen in your little stretch of city, and you know that if he even thinks you’ve crossed him there’ll be hell to pay.

You glance at your watch. 6 PM on the dot. Time, cruel time.

Current Funds: $45.5 Hunger Level: 5

>[x] You know a few of the older hobos in the area. Ask around about Creeper’s mutant thieves.

You resolve to make sure that, at the very least, you know what’s generally going on with these two rogues running round town. You take a turn somewhat downtown, where there’s the sheer mass of restaurants ensures that there’ll be a few edible leavings hanging about.

After just over an hour, you’ve managed to touch base with Big Al, Dusty Jake and Barnaby B, whose lazy eye has always unnerved you. None of them have seen the guys, but B claims (in typical hobo fashion) to know a guy that has. Harry Rotter, the oldest and foulest little street monster this side of Manhattan – named so for his magical ability to make all your money vanish and leave little else but grease.

Eventually you track him down at one of the shelters running on this side of town, lining up with the rest of the blues brigade for soup handouts. He’s a thin, frayed man in his ancienties, with sharp eyes that seem to cut little snippets out of you and store them away for keeping.

>[X] Start some sort of civilized conversation. >[X] Ask what he’s seen.

You approach casually, making sure your hood is secure. You’ve found that NY’s unwanted are startlingly tolerant after a year or two of shit, but the guys ladling out soup over at the front of the line are another matter. Laura swallows and cups a hand over her nose. Yeah, this place reeks pretty awful.

“Hey, Harry.” You try to be polite – he’s an old guy after all. “Enjoying the weather?”

He shuffles around in his huge coat and turns to face you, eyes darting over your every inch.

“Nope. What’yer want, boy?”

Right. Well, that was futile.

“Yeah, uh… I heard you saw these two new kids round here.” He snorts. He snorts long and hard. “Mutants new kids, specifically. I was wondering if you remembered anything about them.”

“B tole you that?” He sniffs and rubs his nose with a dilapidated knuckle. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe not.”

>Persuasion Check >DC 15 >+2 bonus for UNKNOWN VARIABLE Rolled 17 + 5

>I'm cool with it. I know you meant it to be a 2, and you're over the required DC anyhow.

You can’t believe this shit. Well, you can, but you’d rather not.

“Come on, man, really? These guys could be dangerous. They’re hopped up on Jack. You know what that does to mutants”–

SNIKT. Huh. What was that?

–“it’s like PCP for people who can blow up your house.”

SNIKT.

“Aright alright, yeh…” Old Harry Rotter makes a valiant effort at raising his arms in mock defeat. He gets about halfway. “…yeh, I get it.”

You notice he’s not really looking at you – his eyes keep darting just behind you, at Laura. What?

“Saw ‘em last night, yeh, up by the little park near the Bugle. Two of ‘em, girl an’ a boy, pretty young…” He strokes his chin contemplatively, and for a moment looks like some kind of filthy piss mage. “Sixeen, I’d say. Boy was wearin’ all black, all… skinny stuff. Dark hair, too. I remember th’ girl better…”

Yeah, you bet he does.

“…‘cause she was twitchin’ and flickerin’ on an off like a lightswitch. Kept rubbing her hands, tryina’ get somethin’ off, sending all sparks everywhere. Pretty girl, stupid blue hair. Chinese or somethin’.”

>[X] That’s enough. Give him $5 anyway, he’s a bastard but he’s old.

“Alright, Harry, that’s enough for me.”

You lean in a bit and slap $5 of paper into his rancid grasp. He looks at you with a strange, taken-aback fugue in his eyes, like something doesn’t compute. You guess that’s the difference between you and him. That, and seventy odd years.

You and Laura take off away from the soup line, going nowhere in particular at first.

Well, you know what these guys look like, at least. You’ve no doubt that Rotter has already told everything he just spilled on you to Creeper, but ‘near a park’ probably isn’t the most valuable bit of information. With any luck both of them are long gone by now.

Well, either way, you’ve gotta make the most of the today. Won’t be long till the cold really closes in.

>You've gained a Karma Point! You now have 2 in total!

>Karma points can be used to re roll a single botched test!

>[X] Get something to eat.

Laura seems to be okay (she’s still got the remains of her last meal tucked away in its little paper bag), but you’re starting to get hungry. Three meals in a day is pretty flash for you, but you guess you’ve been running around trying to keep your life sorted.

You locate a nearby McDonalds and order whatever’s $1 (it’s some kind of skimpy little burger). As you wait, you suddenly recall the matter of Laura’s new job, and that the subject of payment has yet to arise.

“Hey, Laura, how much exactly is that bar paying you.”

“I will be working from five-thirty to ten, and I will earn thirty United States Dollars.” She rattles it off without blinking. You look up for a moment and grimace, working out a bit of math in your head.

Yep. That’s definitely under minimum wage. You recall the owner’s triumphant grin. She must’ve figured out how desperate you were.

>[X] Renegotiate

“I think we’re gonna have to renegotiate that at some point.” You say, as the kid over the counter passes you your food.

Laura stares at her shoes for a moment, then looks up.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Ehhhhh… “Nah, not really. It might be the best we’re gonna get for now. Paying you that low is illegal, but technically so is you working for her. It’s just, we can’t let that place push you too far. There has to be a limit somewhere.”

She seems to take a moment to process this as you head out, her brow furrowing a little. Does she really not know this stuff?

You munch down your burger at hobopace. It’s thin and greasy, but it fills a hole, and you feel ready to pack the rest of the day with profitable deeds

>Current Funds: $39.5 >Hunger Level: 3

Gimme a D20. Rolled 20 >Nice >[X] Derelict.

>[X] Approach the subject of how she feels about working at the bar.

New York could very easily be described as a revolving conveyer belt of wrecks, derelicts and ruins. Nobody knows why the universe seems to have it out for this place in particular, but it does. A year ago, it was the Hulk. Two years ago, it was all those damn… green alien guys, Gulls or whatever. You’d just hit the city three years ago, right on time for the giant guy in the wonky purple getup. Before you were around it was Namor and Red Skull and the like. Every year, a new disaster. Old ruins get built back up, new ruins spontaneously appear as if to fill in the void.

So, you decide, your best bet for warm lodgings’ll be one of New York’s abundant broken buildings.

You and Laura spend an hour heading towards one of the taped-off zones to the East of the Bugle (which has become your North Star as of late). Not too far from the docks there’s a fresh scar gouged into the city by Doctor Doom or someone else in a cape, and you slip in pretty easy.

The buildings here are lopsided shells, scorched by some manner of cosmic fire and often little more than skeletons. But there’s half an apartment block that looks relatively stable, as well as what looks like some kind of public building – a school, probably – and a furniture store.

>[X] Apartments

You decide to check the apartments.

The two of you walk around the ailing structure till you find the entrance – an electronic door half- obscured by fallen masonry. Luckily, the door’s workings are fried, so it swings open just fine. Inside, the dark and the dust sing together, the remaining tatters of reddening, evening light drooping through dozens of little blast holes where something ungodly cut through the building. You take Laura’s hand – you see just fine in the dark, but as far you know, she’s just got a mighty sense of smell. Her skin is warm and soft, prickling at your touch. You feel a kind of anxious moment pass through her fingers, up her bones, before she weaves her fingers between yours.

“Laura…” Your voice bounces, and you can’t help but lower it. Everything here is so still. “Do you not mind working at that bar? Don’t you find it kind of… nasty?”

Her breath sharpens as you pass by an open room. It’s been ripped open like an oyster, everything inside scorched beyond recognition. Along one wall, shadows of ash stretch out their arms, flailing in stillness. One big one and a little one, their arms meeting where the hands would be. You move on.

“I don’t… understand?” She mutters. You pass by another set of shadows, this time along the corridor. Big one, little one, big one. “If working there will let me stay in the city, I can do it. Is this about the money?”

“No. It’s not just about the money.” You head up the stairs. Laura shuffles around something somebody left on the steps. Toy tractor or something. “Don’t you mind working for someone who just wanted to use you?”

“I will be more careful in future.” She says, nodding.

You keep going till you get to the third floor, where the apartments seem somewhat less devastated. You manage to find an alright three doors down from where the building trails off into sky. It looks to have been hit by looters, seeing as all the nice stuff is gone, but there’s a bed in one room and the door closes just about right. No heating, of course, but it’s warmer than the streets.

>[X] Head back down and check out the store

“Homely as this is…” You glance along the dust-faded walls. At the very least, you’ve found an apartment with no… shadows. “…I reckon we should check out that furniture store back downstairs. Hell, maybe we can do this place up a bit.”

Laura nods, though you’re not sure whether it’s in agreement or acknowledgement, and you head back down.

The furniture place’s remains are just across the street (or, what’s left of the street). You end up having to pick your way through shattered windows, as the actual entrance is lost under a mountain of rubble – mostly, you suspect, originating from the building you were just in.

It’s a big store, with multiple departments. You pass by sofas, chairs, even a few beds (with duvets!)… a lot of them too big to chance getting all the way up that ailing apartment building to the room you’ve picked out, but you could always just set down here. That said, the place is bigger, and much breezier.

>[X] Take stuff for the apartment. >[X] Check storage.

“Haha…” Man, you really could laugh. You could just roll straight over and laugh it up. Look at all this shit just lying around. You shoot a grin at Laura, who stares back, green eyes studying you. “Jackpot!”

Laura scrounges up a few blankets as you head on to check the back. Check the back, ha! You remember shopping with your mother, how she’d always ask some clerk to check the back, just in case. It was always your assumption that they popped round the corner, picked their nose a while, and returned with a shrug and a “Sorry, ma’am.”

As expected, there isn’t much in storage that you couldn’t get your hands on outside. Row upon row of metal shelves lie empty save for dust. The place wasn’t hit so hard back here, so you suspect that whatever company owned the place came in and cleaned out.

As you move down the rows, you notice something bundled under one of the lower shelves. Looks like a bunch of blankets all rolled up together. Right next to a trio of unmarked tin cans.

>[X] Get Laura >[X] Check it out.

Quietly, you head back and get Laura, leaning halfway back into the store proper and motioning for her to follow. She hangs a little back as you return to the odd little assemblage.

You tread closer, leaning down to reach under the shelf.

Your initial assessment was about right – someone’s grabbed a bunch of blankets and bundled ‘em all up like a big cocoon. You feel the fabric for anything tucked away inside, and are surprised to find that it’s still warm. As for the tins, a quick sniff reveals that they’re full of beans.

“John!” You hear Laura shout, urgently.

>Reflex Check >DC13 >+1 for Enhanced Senses >+1 for Laura overwatch. >+1 for finding heat on the blankets. Rolled 17 >easy peasy lemon squeazy

“That’s mine!” Someone shrieks.

You spin about just in time to see the chair leg coming. Your attacker is awkward and unbalanced, and his swing had too much drawback too it – you easily veer out of the way. In the wake of his backswing you get a good look at him and realize that it’s just some weedy kid, probably just about Laura’s age. He’s skinny, his cheeks are gaunt, and his black hair has the tell-tale greasy gleam of someone either living on the streets or living in the 1950’s.

Behind him, Laura is rapidly pelting over the intervening distance.

>[X] “Whoa, whoa, sure, it’s yours. Settle down man.”

Diplomacy check, please. DC 12. Rolled 1 (anon posted a pic of Spider Jerusalem >Typical, Spider Jerusalem. Fucking typical. “Whoa, whoa, sure, it’s yours. Settle down man.”

Maybe the dim lighting is casting a horrific visage for you, or maybe you forgot to put down his stupid tin of beans, but somehow the kid doesn’t find you particularly convincing. He lets loose a mighty bellow (more like a very upmarket wail, really) and swings again, smacking the tin out of your hand and sending a sharp burst of pain stabbing up your arm.

“Ah shit fuck!” You stagger backwards, wincing, and Laura is on him in a flash.

You barely see her twist his arm around his back as she bears him down to the floor. When you look again her palm has his head trapped against the ground… and, somehow, the chair leg appears to have been cut cleanly into four separate pieces.

“Do not struggle.” She commands, flatly. He does struggle, of course, but soon seems to surrender.

>[X] “Calm down, kid.” >[X] Fisk.

“Please, please, I can’t…”

You kneel down in front of him, patting down his jacket and nodding appreciatively to Laura. He doesn’t seem to have much – the guy’s skin and bones, to be honest. You doubt he can carry all too much the way he feels. You do find a little plastic bag in his jacket pocket, though.

“Calm down, kid. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”

“Please”– Man, he’s crying. Not just little spring, either. We’re talking waterfalls. –“Please, I can’t hold it”–

Suddenly, Laura jerks backward, letting him go. You look up to see her staring at her hands, and for a moment, it doesn’t sink in. All the skin on her palms is gone, leaving bare the bloody mesh of sinew and bone below. Oh shit.

Suddenly, it dawns on you that everything this kid’s wearing is synthetic. As in, non-biodegradable.

>[X] Bandages. >[X] Get away.

“Holy shit!”

You spring to your feet, getting your hands as far away as humanly possible from this toxic-ass kid. You immediately grab the bundle of blankets and start ripping strips off it. It’s not exactly easy, but hey, adrenaline – you manage to ad-hoc a few measly bandages before rushing over to Laura.

“Shit, man, what the hell did you do?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He’s pushed himself up against the shelf and all but curled up, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t turn it off…”

You grab Laura’s hands start weaving your ‘bandages’ around them… and she just looks at you, straight up in your eyes, and says:

“Don’t worry. I am fine.”

What the hell?”

“No”– You try to protest as she begins unwrapping your handiwork, but she just raises her hands, and you see it. Just little tendrils at first, little bits of sinew, reasserting themselves and re-weaving. Then comes the skin, knitting its way back up from her palms, spilling over her naked gore, and finally sewing itself shut. Good as new.

>[X] Make sure the kid’s okay. >[X] Make sure Laura’s okay. >[X] Write in.

“…Huh.” You stare. She shares. “You’re… sure you’re fine?”

She nods, as she does.

You breathe out a long sigh of relief. Binding a wound like that… was not gonna be pretty. To be honest, you’re pretty sure that was a hospital trip you were looking at there. And you sure as hell can’t pay no hospital fees.

You turn your attention to the kid.

“Alright, guy? Calm down. She's fine. I'm fine. You're fine.”

He looks up, breathing heavily between thick, ungainly sobs.

“…How? I hurt everyone I touch.”

“Well, you didn’t hurt her.” You reply curtly. “And we ain't here to hurt you, or steal from you, okay? Look at me, see? Not hurting you. Are -you- okay?”

He rubs his eyes on his sleeves and sniffs back any further tears.

“Yeah. I’m sorry for trying to hit you with that chair leg.”

>[X] “No problem.” >[X] “What’s your name, kid?” >[X] Check the bag you fished outta his jacket.

“Water under the bridge.” You insist, somewhat glumly. You can’t really hold it against the kid, but you came pretty damn close losing some weight there, and unlike Laura, you don’t grow that stuff back all too quick.

“What’s your name, kid?”

He swallows the last of his crying fit. To be honest, he doesn’t look all too over it – he’s shaking life a leaf over there, and there’s these… these… dark rings under his eyes…

“Kevin. Kevin Ford.”

…and he’s super pale… and he’s sweating way too much for this weather…

You check that little doggie bag you fished out of his jacket. Just one sniff and you know exactly what’s in there.

Jack. Darn.

>[X] Write in. (major) >[X] “Where’s your friend?” (minor)

“Kevin… this stuff is gonna land you in a whole world of hurt. It only works till it suddenly don’t.”

Experience lends your voice a pretty unusual authority. Not personal experience, of course – proximal experience. You’ve seen what happens when a mutant on Jack decides to go nova, and it is the worst kind of not pretty.

He seems to wince inwardly and bites his lip. The shame in his gaze is palpable.

“I just… I just wanted to be able to touch someone. Just for a little while.”

“Maybe so, but this shit will kill you, Kevin. It almost killed me. Hell…” You decide to take a wild leap. “It’s probably gonna kill your friend.”

He looks up sharply, a faint, harried accusation in his eyes. Bingo.

>[X] “How much of this have you used? Can you possibly pay it back?” >[X] Write in.

“Alright…” You knead your thumbs over your forehead. This is… getting big and complicated. And spinning straight at you. “You know one of your friends is dead, right? He was front page news.”

Kevin nods. He’s still biting his lip. The shakes have gotten worse – he looks like he’s near the end, now. Pretty soon he’ll be in the clear. Till he pops another one, anyhow.

“How much of this have you used?” You dangle the doggie bag over your head. “Can you possibly pay any of it back?”

“No…” He swallows had, and shakes his head. “We… we took at least eight hundred dollars’ worth.”

Oh Jesus Christ.

“Okay.” Fuck, man. Eight hundred dollars? Eight hundred fucking dollars? That little doggie bag isn’t eight hundred dollars of Jack. No fucking way. “Do you know who Creeper is?”

He shakes his head again.

“Well, he’s the guy you stole this shit from, and he’s looking for you.”

If possible, Kevin manages to go a shade paler. For a moment he looks as though he’s about to vomit.

>[X] “Where’s the rest of the Jack, Kevin? This isn’t nearly worthy eight hundred.” >[X] “Do you have ANYWHERE to go?” >[X] “Where’s your non-dead friend?”

“Okay, okay… first up, then, where’s your friend?” You ask, quickly adding: “The non-dead one.”

“I… I’m not sure.” He rubs his eyes frantically for a moment. Yeah, they’ll be itching for the next hour or two, likely. “We last saw each other further into town. We were sleeping in parks back then, and we were both… really high… and we got into some stupid argument… I haven’t seen her since.”

Well, not entirely helpful. Gives you about the same bead on her as the one you got from old Harry Rotter. Check the parks.

“Now, Kevin… and this is important… where’s the rest of the Jack? This isn’t even half of eight hundred.”

He swallows.

“Terry had most of it.” Seeing as Terry isn’t a girl’s name, you assume that ‘Terry’ is the guy who – literally – exploded onto the front page of every paper in New York. “Noriko had more than me, though. She needed it. Her powers are… more violent.”

“Right.” That doesn’t sound good at all. “Finally, do you have anywhere to go? Anywhere at all?”

He shakes his head immediately, hugging his knees.

“No, nowhere. I was with my dad when… when my powers…” He runs his hands through his hair nervously and swallows back what looks a lot like another bundle of tears. You pretty much get the picture

>[X]“I’ve got a place you can hold down at, alright? But you have to drop this Jack stuff yesterday.” (+1 karma) >[X] “Hey, Laura… can you maybe can nosedar.”

Well, you pretty much know what you’re doing. It’s incredibly stupid and contrary to your further existence as a living, breathing, vaguely reptilian mutie person, but you can’t leave this out in shark-infested waters. He doesn’t seem too bad. Green as freshly-cut grass, but not bad, exactly.

Still, there’s one little thing tickling at a paranoid spot on your brain.

“Hey, Laura…” She straightens up, like cat. “Can you maybe pay attention for that nasty paint smell you whiffed at the bar earlier?”

She nods. You turn back to Kevin.

“I’ve got a place you can hold down at, alright? But you have to drop this Jack stuff yesterday.”

“Y-yeah.” He nods his head fervently. “Thanks, man. I swear – I swear I’ll drop it.”

Right then. It’s move-in day.

THREAD 04: END

THREAD #5

You are John James Green – mutant, vagabond, man of impractical charity.

Two days ago, you thought that having a real(ish) job for the first time in four years was probably going to be the fastest turn your life would take in the next few months. Apparently you were either unbelievably naïve or unbelievably unlucky, however, as things have become continually more complicated since then. Now days you’re hang with some kind of homeless fugitive girl and a boy whose naked touch can reduce

a person to a pile of ash (note: he’s also a druggie, and a thief, and very much wanted by a very unnerving local drug baron).

Perhaps not the ideal direction for your new life, but the course is set and there’s wind in the sails now.

For the first time in weeks, you don’t awaken to the sight of snow, and nor do you have to imagine for those brief incognisant seconds of early consciousness that you’re tucked up in bed. There are real blankets over you today, and while it’s not quite a bed, the battered old sofa you and Kevin managed to lug up to your apartment is the softest thing you’ve slept on in months.

A verdant green stare greets your entry into wakefulness. Laura prods you again and you untangle yourself, muttering grimly about the blasted cold and other things that won’t matter all that much anymore once you’re fully awake. She doesn’t seem to sleep properly, so you got her to get you up early.

On the opposite end of the dilapidated apartment, Kevin sleeps like a stone, his head cradled in his arms. Poor kid can’t use a mattress, on account of him sorta disintegrating them.

>Current Funds: $40.5 >Hunger Level: 3 >Karma Points: 3 >Time: 6:00 AM.

>[X] You gotta be at the Bugle in an hour. Get going.

You’d like to make sure that Kevin’s not gonna bring the house down or something, but you just don’t have the time. If he’s not an idiot he knows the ground rules by now, anyway – stay inside, stay near Laura, don’t touch anything that looks like it’s important.

You say goodbye to Laura and head out, picking your way down the ruined stairs and out into the cold. Snow’s still omnipresent, and here, in the scar left by whatever-superhero-vs-whatever-supervillain nobody’s even bothered shovelling it out of the streets. It was a fucking blessing, finding somewhere so convenient to hunker down. Sleeping through this shit would’ve been hell.

You have to force march yourself through the snow to make it to the Bugle on time, but at least the pace keeps you warm. You arrive a minute off on time, but – once again – the Vanessa simply points you on your way through the early-morning bustle, into a corridor that is becoming pretty familiar.

You take your stack and head out. On the way out the door, you spot Peter making his way in. He looks kinda terrible, like he’s been up all night, but he waves half-heartedly in your direction.

>[X] Ask him if he’s okay, he looks wiped.

You veer off on an intercept course.

“Hey, man. You alright there? You don’t look so great.”

“Nah don’t… don’t worry about it.” He shrugs particularly lifelessly, managing a plucky but ultimately unconvincing smile. “I was just up late last night. Homework stuff.”

Oh yeah, right. He’s still a kid. He’s gotta be balancing school with all this crazy Bugle stuff. Still, he sounds kinda… rehearsed, like he’s been going over this in his head for a while. Or, perhaps, he just gets told he looks wiped a lot.

>[x] Ask him about the exploding mutant story. >[x] Say goodbye. Get to work.

“Jeez, that sounds rough.”

You get a bit of a curious reaction from that. Maybe he’s not used to homeless dudes referring to his life as ‘rough’. Maybe no one is.

“Uh, hey…” You attempt to push aside the awkward little moment by focusing on Job Things. Job Things that happen to relate to your presently tenuous situation. “The Bugle been following up on that thing about the exploding guy? The drug thing?”

“Oh, yeah, sorta.” He grimaces a little. “Ben’s – that’s this guy upstairs – been trying to link it to Fisk. I mean, we all know he’s behind this stuff. But he cleans up after himself, I guess, and anyone worth questioning over it basically makes their living kissing is tuchas.”

He mock shrugs, but you detect a hint of real bitterness there, under the morning fugue. Huh.

“Well, I gotta be going.” You hold up your stack. “Papers to hand out. And stuff.”

“Hah, yeah. And stuff for me too.”

You wave each other off and head out.

You’ve got a closer spot this time – it’s outside a station again, but you can walk it. You get there in under half an hour and start handing out papers to the rush of morning commuters.

>Hunger Level: 4 Anyhow, gimme a D20. Just seeing how quick you finish up. Rolled 20

Go are the goddamn newspaper Flash. You’re like that Quicksilver guy, except not an Avenger, and not creepy (at least, as far as you know). And your speed powers only work when handing out papers.

Within two hours you’ve handed out everything the Bugle gave you, the day very much still ahead of you. Just as well, you guess – you’ve got your hands pretty much full. You’ve been considering finding some way of heating up your little burrow, but you’re not exactly too sure how to go about it.

>[X] Go get your money

Dawdling would mean letting the cold seep in, so you don’t.

You head back to the Bugle as soon as possible. The streets are thinning out now that the morning is slowly giving way to midday, and it’s only half an hour before you’re once again before those stately doors. You press in and receive your paycheck from the front desk. Apparently they’ve got all the help

they could want signed up for tomorrow morning already, so you’ll have to wait till the day after for your next $60 fix, but hey, at least you’re becoming a regular. Maybe if you seem eager enough they’ll start putting aside slots for you. That’d be cool.

You head back out into the cold and the grey, and think about things.

You’ve got a kid with an eight-hundred dollar debt to Creeper – and, by extension, to the Kingpin – on your hands. Last time you really thought about it all, your plan sort of petered out at finding Kevin’s friend – Norio or whatever. But that’s short-term at best. You’ve got Kevin’s share of the Jack, so there’s that. You might be able to return it, bullshit something up about the kids skipping town. But you can’t help but wonder how long that’d hold up, and how hard Creeper’d come down if it became known that you’d hadn’t been entirely honest. Maybe you could pay all back, somehow? Creeper’s a crook, and crooks don’t fight when they don’t have to. His ego’s likely a little sore, but enough interest could conceivably smooth that over. But where the hell would you ever get 800+ dollars?

>Current Funds: $100.5

>[X] Check out the local parks for Kev’s friend.

>Roll a D20 for investigation >+1 bonus for enhanced senses Rolled 18 + 1

You decide to head on to the park. It’s closer than home, and if you curve through it at the right point you’re basically heading towards the scar anyhow. Might as well pass through, see what you can see an’ such.

You get there at ten thirty, and spend a good few minutes basically loitering. Not many people about round this time of day, so it’s relatively quiet. The old paths bleed away under the snow, marked mostly by the intermittent procession of benches that stand alongside them. These places work fucking great with your abilities – single tone backgrounds are the easiest to duplicate. So easy, in fact, that your body used to just start fading out against them. Almost like you were sort of slipping away into the background.

Of course, you’ve got more control, now, so that’s not likely to happen anytime. But right now it’s kinda nice to know that you can vanish even easier than usual.

You cut along one of the open knolls, frozen grass crunching under your boots.

Time to put yourself in the mind of a druggie mutant loser. Shouldn’t be hard, seeing as you’re already two-thirds of the way there.

You check a few of the more manageable bushes, getting yourself pretty much covered in snow in the process. You were thinking she might’ve buried some of the goods, maybe head back for a refill once the heat of off, but you guess her stoned-ass brain isn’t really fizzing right for such complicated and nuanced plans, because none of the good spots have been disturbed.

As you’re passing by one of the wooded areas, you find yourself snorting noisily, a sudden updraft bringing a sharp, nauseous scent up your nostrils. You lick the roof of your mouth – tastes kinda familiar.

Jogging in the scent’s path, you make your way to a cluster of trees, where the smell lingers like a coppery aftershave.

The snow is dappled with little flecks of darkening red. It’s not much, but it’s enough to attract your attention.

>[X] There’s a trail. Follow it.

Well, shit. It could just be a mugging. It’s not like your nose can pick out any Jack swimming in those little flecks of blood (that said, you’re pretty sure it couldn’t do that anyway). Could be nothing to do with you at all.

Against your better judgement, you follow. The trail is sporadic, and it’s just little, timid spots occasionally marring the snow. Occasionally you have to rely entirely on your sense of smell, but the stuff is still relatively fresh in the air. The scent leads you out of the park, occasionally taking you through a weird, sudden bubble of nauseating ozone.

Eventually you find yourself stopping amidst a huddle of other raggedy down-and-outs, and lo and behold, before you is a house of the Lord. Or the remains of one, anyhow. It got gutted out years ago and it’s been a homeless shelter ever since.

Welp.

>[X] There's some guy with a register at the door. Ask if he's seen a girl matching the description you've got.

“Hey! Hey, excuse me!” You shove through the cluster of puffy jackets and stained hoods, momentarily wishing that your enhanced sense of smell had some kind of off switch. “Excuse me!”

The guy at the door – eurgh, he’s all clean and evangelical an shit, got his shirt rolled in and everything – shoots you a stare that lounges somewhere in the regions between disapproval and pity, and calmly tells you to wait in line.

Man, fuck these guys.

“No, look, I’m not here for shelter.” You elbow aside a particularly stubborn fellow and make it to the door. “I’m looking for someone. You, uh, seen an asian girl come through here? Seventeen, short, dyed hair…?”

His disconnected pity is replaced momentarily by confusion. He looks you up and down.

“…Blue hair?”

“Yeah!” You nod. Phew, good luck there. You were gonna go with purple. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Oh… well, yes, we she came in a few minutes ago. She’s a little hurt, but it’s nothing we couldn’t bandage. Still, I, er…” He gives you that long look again. What? “You’re… not her father, are you? He said he’d be picking her up himself on the phone.”

Wait, what.

>[ ] “I’m her brother. Adopted. Let me in.” >DC13. >-1 modifier due to looking like a dirty hobo Rolled 17 + 1

>[X] Implausible Adopted Brother

“I’m her brother. Adopted. Let me in.”

“I, uh…” He glances over you again. “I should probably see some ID or something.”

“Look, I got here right after you called, right? I’ve been looking for her all week. Now let me in.”

Somehow, you strike a chord with him. Maybe he’s just not devoted enough to tussle with possibly some girl’s dealer or pimp or whatever – he is kinda scrawny. Maybe he’s stupid. Maybe you’re just the next Daniel Day-Lewis and your performance has blown him out of his shoes. Whatever the case, he lets you in and tells you to turn left up the first set of stairs.

You hurry up there and turn into what looks like a small clinic. There’s a few beds lined along the walls, most of them filled by scrawny, frayed fellows sporting various little hurts. You spot the girl immediately (honestly? In this crowd, a pretty asian chick with neon blue hair is kinda hard to miss) – she’s curled up on one of the beds toward the middle of the room, shaking like a leaf. A volunteer or someone seems to trying to talk to her, with limited successes.

>[X] Talk to the volunteer.

“Hey, she alright?”

The woman glances up from her patient, and again there’s that look of piteous disregard. That said, she was probably expecting some Chinese business dude in his mid-thirties, not a stinking tramp with his hood up and shades on indoors. You move over to the girl’s bedside.

Yeesh, she’s not looking good. The padded bandage over her shoulder must be what led you to her, but beside that, she’s a greasy, sweaty mess of quivering paleness. Her forearms are clothed in a thin, dark red netting of scratches – an adverse reaction to the Jack, most likely. Her eyes are clamped shut, pupils racing under their lids.

“Not great.” Mutters the volunteer/nurse/whatever the hell she is. “And you are…?”

>[x] “Her brother.”

D20 me again. Same DC as before. Rolled 19

>[X] “Brother.”

“I’m her bother.” You reply, adding “Adopted” when you get a quizzical stare.

You’re amazed by how well it works. Maybe it’s just too weird to deny? Maybe you’re blowing some minds here? Maybe that’s your true mutant power, blowing people’s minds with raw untruth. She moves over, giving you some room.

“Our dad’ll be up soon. How’s she doing?”

The woman sigs and tries to look apologetic. That’s not good. Or maybe she’s just lashing herself inwardly for failing to consider the complexities of the modern, multiracial family?

“She’s been shot – just grazed, luckily. And we’re not really allowed to do bloodwork stuff here, but she’s clearly on something. Does… does she have a long history of substance abuse.”

>DC12 >+1 for enhanced senses Rolled 13 + 1 >rucky rucky

>[X] “Not sure."

“Not sure, she’s been missing for a while. I just wanna get her home, if that’s alright.”

Come on, girl. Let’s not make this any worse than it already is. You’re not exactly looking forward to carrying a twitching, sweating mess downstairs, but you’ve really gotta go.

“Well, I’d rather wait for her father, if you don’t mind.” Urgh, seriously? “We have some serious matters to discuss here. Your sister has clearly become involved in something very traumatic, and it might be best that she stays in a kind, supportive environment, at least until we can determine why she left home. You can tell me if anything at home might have made her feel that she had to leave”– Yadda yadda yadda yadda…

Suddenly, your ears perk up under your hood (thankfully she doesn’t notice), something cutting through the monotonous – if well-intentioned – drone. You can hear footsteps heading up the doors, and a voice you recognize from downstairs.

“…can’t apologize enough. He said he was her brother. Don’t worry, we’ve called the police…”

Shit.

>[X] “Okay look I’m a mutant and she’s a mutant and we need to get out now.” >[X] Grab her, run for the window. >[X] Written in stuff.

“Okay, look.” You grab the woman by the shoulders and bodily move her aside, ignoring the obligatory indignant gasp. In the same motion, you let your shades slide a little down your nose, and there is another, very different gasp. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m a mutant, she’s a mutant, and we have to go right now. Understood?”

She nods frantically, like she’s expecting heat rays to come lancing out of your eyes or… mind blasts or something. If fucking only. If you had mind powers you’d probably be president or something.

You scoop the girl up – urk, she’s seriously rank with sweat, holy shit – and dash toward the window. God, you hope that window leads somewhere relatively soft.

“Hey, you – hey!” You nearly blinker out through sheer adrenaline. But can’t do that. Can’t let anyone know that the girl’s mutant rescuer was an INVISIBLE mutant rescuer. That raises some unpleasant questions about you. “Hey, get back here!”

BANG!

Someone screams. The window up ahead bursts open. Holy shit, gun, gun. Fuck.

It’s split-second now. There’s an open window opposite the one you’re about to drive out of – apartments or something. You might be able to make it. Maybe. It’s either that or go straight down and hope that something soft is waiting for you.

>[X] Make the leap. You can do it >DC 16 >+1 bonus for your overflowing COURAGE Rolled 17 + 1 >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COYRxf13tIg

You’re not gonna make it. You’re not gonna fucking make it. Holy shit this is a terrible idea.

Your boot hits the windowsill. Your head is telling you that this is a bad idea but you’re already pushing off. Girl’s gonna weigh you down. You’re gonna land on your goddamn neck and Creeper’s not even gonna have to bother making an example out of you, because you’ll have done that for him.

You sail through the air. Your veins are burning with fear and stupidity and exhilaration. You’re in the wind for a second, and then it comes rushing towards you, faster than you ever could have expected. You’re gonna make it.

You land hard, just enough thought remaining in your head to prompt you into a roll. Your ribs complain profusely and you think you’ve skinned your elbows on something, and – man, haha, wow, this guy’s desk is fucked, shit – but you didn’t go down. You made it. Yes!

Then the girl starts screaming in your arms, scratching at you with all her strength.

No!

>[X] Get her to chill.

“Ow, shit!” You grab her wrists, trying to keep her nails the hell away from your pretty face. She’s scratching at you, you think – her eyes aren’t even open. She’s just going berserk at mostly nothing, the problem being that you’re in the way of nothing.

“Hey, look, I know Kevin, alright!?” She pushes against you hysterically. She bucks, and kicks, and even tries to bite. “I know Kevin! I’m Kevin’s friend!”

You’re not sure that really did anything, to be honest. She gets quiet, but it seems more like she tired herself out than anything else. She droops against you like a wilting, bright blue flower. A reeking, sweaty blue flower. You can feel tears and drool and possibly mucus soaking through your hoodie.

>Perception Check >DC12 >+1 Enhanced Senses bonus Rolled 17 + 1 >karmic success

“It’s alright. It’s alright…” Christ, she’s covering you in drool. How can one tiny asian girl produce this much slobber? Is that her mutant power? Enhanced saliva? Because if it is Kevin was most certainly lying when he sai –

Corner of your eye. Back at the window to the shelter. Ohshit.

You fall flat against the floor. The gunshot barks over your head, boring a hole through the wall beside you. Shit, that would’ve gone straight through your neck…

You scamper behind a nearby sofa, dragging your slobbery princess with you. She’s gone limp now – you’re not sure if that’s good or bad, but it’s easier, at least.

>[X] Run.

You have a gun, of sorts. You have a gun.

But you’re not John Wayne. Not today, anyway.

You tighten your grip around the girl and make a break for the door. The gunfire snaps through the air again and you’re sure you’re about to lose something very dear to you, but you make it into the hallway beyond.

Not far now – you just gotta get out of this place, get down the stairs, and get home. Nothing in your way now.

Outside, sirens blare over the sounds of the city.

You know what? Fuck the po-lice. You’ve been through enough shit today – you’re not dealing with Officer Doughnut and Officer Bagel failing to come to any of the right conclusions and putting a few more shots in your direction.

Cops. Why couldn’t it be Spider-Man or someone?

You root around the apartment for an alternate exit, eventually deciding on the window out of what appears to be some kid’s room. Unfortunately, there’s no fire escape, but there is a balcony right beneath you, and a car right beneath that, and they prove to be admirable stand-ins.

You run a good few yards before stopping for breath in a little side-street comfortably far from any main roads. Man, that shit was close. You’re pretty much praying that nobody liable to string a coherent story together saw your face back there, because if they did, that’s a target right in the middle of your back.

The girl’s not twitching anymore. You put her down, and let yourself slide back against a nice soft brick wall. You guess it was worth it. Not everyday you get to be a her– s You nearly jump out of your skin as what must be every single car alarm on this side of the Daily Bugle goes off at once. Jesus Christ. You clamp your hands down over your ears – the noise is fucking defeating. It gutters up and down like a cat trying to sing, stuttering in and out of pitches you didn’t even know those alarms could do, until, finally, it all stops at once.

Fuck. Ow.

The hair stands up on your neck. And your arms, and your chest, and basically everywhere.

A corona of blue light begins to swell over the girl’s skin, little electrical sparks flying at the tips of her fingers, stark lines of crackling light over her lips, atop her head, under her eyes. It builds, welling up, convulsing, spitting, growing in intensity like some kind of deep, electrical yawn. Like some kind of… Surge.

THREAD 05: END

THREAD #6

You’re John James Green, homeless mutant and wearer of sunglasses at night (and indoors, you douche). And you may have made a bad call somewhere down the line.

Long story short, you promised a druggie thief that you’d help his druggie thief friend, an endeavour that saw you impersonating an asian chick’s brother (you still can’t believe that shit worked), jumping through windows, and dodging bullets. Despite all the best efforts of whoever was shooting at you, you appeared to have gotten away pretty much scot free. Until now.

You’re in an alley. The girl – Kevin’s friend – is with you. And she might be having some kind of bad trip or something, because she just overloaded every car alarm within a quarter of a mile and now appears to be glowing. A blue, pale light is grows under her skin, occasionally flecking out as random arcs of bright white voltage. And the worst thing is, you’re not entirely sure this is a Jack thing. Jack trips usually involve a lot of twitching and thrashing, whereas she seemed to lapse into unconsciousness a few minutes ago.

But you can feel the air getting hotter and hotter, and that light’s only growing brighter…

>[X] Tranquilize

Okay. Okay, maybe this girl needs a time-out. Or… a double time out, you guess.

You fumble through your jacket for that tranquilizer gun thingy, drawing it and edging in as close as you can get before the heat becomes intolerable. You’ve got a pretty much point blank shot, so it would’ve been impossible (or highly embarrassing) to miss, even with one of these awkward things, and the devices hisses as it puts a dart straight into her shoulder.

For a moment you freeze, unsure of exactly what’s about to happen. Then the heat climaxes without warning, white light filling your eyes and ozone clogging your nose. You hit the ground before you know you’re off the floor, and behind your eyelids, the light begins to fade.

You can smell the sweet, acidic tang of crisped metal and the musk of burning leather.

You open your eyes. She’s not glowing anymore, but she seems to have blackened about six feet of alleyway and turned a nearby land rover into a bonfire. Occasional strands of static dart to and fro across her arms.

>[X] Pick her up.

Well, you can’t exactly leave her now that you know she’s a walking health hazard. If the last few days are any indication, those are your favourite kinds of people!

You scoop her up, and immediately flinch in pain – static shock. One of the little arcs running along her skin licks out at you, lashing across your cheek. Ow, shit, that hurts. In fact, a lot hurts. Your hands spasm momentarily and are left with an icky, tingly sensation, like you’ve had them on a radiator for a little too long.

The current seems to fade after the initial jolt, though, and you skedaddle out of there, managing a pretty good pace. Of course, you have no idea where the hell you’re going. At the time it didn’t seem particularly important.

In the distance, multiple sirens begin to coalescence into a single wail.

>[X] Somewhere closer

Best to put some distance between here and you.

You try to mostly keep to the back-alleys and side roads, but your mutant powers didn’t come packaged with incredible parkour aptitude, so you occasionally find yourself forced to try looking inconspicuous while moving through NY’s midday crowds – an endeavour not helped much by the fact your new ‘friend’ seems intent on giving you small but regular electric shocks.

Your ears let you keep a wide berth around most of those sirens in the distance, but every moment you spend exposed feels like eyes are boring into your back. Eventually you turn into a back alley and find yourself weighing your options.

You could hang out on a roof for a while – plenty of fire escapes in NY. You know there’s an old chapel nearby, too, and a few extra asses on pews probably wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. For a moment you even contemplate the Bugle. There’s an entire storage room near the presses that sees little else but backissues and dust.

>[X] Chapel

The Lord loves all mankind, right? Even filthy muties? Welp, it’s about time he proved it to you, so he can watch your back for an hour or two.

You make your way to the chapel. It’s a squat, ugly little building, a pointed strip of stark white jammed between the greys and browns of NY. It’s warm inside, though, and dark – pretty much just how you like it. It’s not like the old ones you remember at home, all cold stone and high, stained windows; this is one of those newish chapels. The walls are plaster and the only stained glass is a huge, prismatic circle above the altar, serving to cast a halo of cold, bright light over the head of the tall, silent J-man standing watch just beneath it.

There’s only three other occupants that you can see. You sidle in between the ranks of pews and sit, setting the girl down alongside you. And… you sit, and sit, and sit, occasionally feeling a slight electrical pulse stand your hairs on end and send little involuntary shivers down your arm.

>[X] Pray. Might as well. >[X] Check your new 'friend'.

The warmth seeps under your coat, pooling between layers of fabric, slowly but surely drinking the winter chill out of you. Soon enough you’re feeling pretty comfortable, a pleasant drowsiness folding over you. In the half-light of the chapel, you find yourself drifting inwards, memories roiling through your senses like so much mist. For a moment the walls are no longer plaster, but old stone, and your head rests sleepily on a soft, warm shoulder. Your sister’s voice flickers in and out amidst the choir. Your mother holds your hand. You’re safe.

You look up at the light bleeding in through the reds and greens and in-betweens of the single stained window, and you think about how much – just how much – you’d give for things to be different. You would do anything – anything – if, by some chance, He really was looking back through that glass at you, and he could make things different. Please, man.

You shuffle a little to stop yourself from falling asleep, and check Kevin’s friend. She’s still out like a (occasionally flickering) lamp, but the graze on her shoulder seems okay, and she’s not shivering or anything. You notice that the needle you put in her neck – or part of it, anyway; you think most of exploded when she went all Electro – is still lodged in there, and you quietly drag it out and drop it at your feet.

>Perception check >D20 >DC12 >+2 bonus for Enhanced Senses >+1 bonus for Attribute Boost Rolled 20

>IN THE NAME OF THE LORD >I SEE EVERYTHING

“…It’s not an exact science…” A hushed voice near the entrance catches your attention, and you tune in momentarily. “The pheromone trail is weak, and has a high dispersion rate, so”–

“I don’t care.” This one’s female, and it has a hiss to it. A familiar smell begins to tickle the underside of your nostrils… “I want it now. You’ve wasted enough time already. Can you, or can you not track it?”

Okay, this is interesting. You cast a surreptitious glance in the conversation’s direction. The first voice belongs to a short, wiry fellow in his mid-thirties. His companion, who is tapping her foot lightly against the floor, is a tall and, by the looks of it, pretty well stacked woman with a tanned complexion and dark hair. Her brow is set in an annoyed scowl. They’re both wearing nondescript as fuck suits, though she has a trenchcoat over hers.

Man, what is that smell?

“Better than you can.” Says the dude, somewhat haltingly, trying to his best to stare her down. “Now pay attention. Two mutants reported to police and a positive signature? This the best lead we’ve had in days.”

Shit shit.

Nightshade and… cyanide?

>[X] Fade

Shit. Not fucking good.

You don’t know who these guys are, but you don’t care. If they’re tracking mutants, you do not want to get acquainted. That vague, fuguelike feeling drops over you and you drop out of sight, watching them as they start moving down the aisle.

The short one seems to be checking something on his phone every once in a while, whereas the woman just sort of gazes up and down the building, watching for… something. Eventually the dude motions his companion over and they turn towards your set of pews. Every goddamn hair on your body stands up on end and as they draw closer, and closer, until the woman is standing not even five feet from you.

Man, she has really broad shoulders for a chick.

“It’s pooled here. Somewhat. I mean, it’s hard to tell how fresh it is.”

The woman glances dismissively at Kevin’s neon-haired friend, but the obvious teen runaway doesn’t hold her interest for long. Instead, she reaches down toward you, her finger stretching… grasping… at something between your feet. She picks up that discarded dart thingy and holds it up to the light. A tiny smile tugs at her lips.

“One of our tranquilizers.” She states, a victorious tone edging into her voice.

“It WAS reported that one of our agents lost his weapon.” Notes the male.

She seems to ignore him, instead making her way to the bottom of the aisle, by the altar.

“Hey!” She calls out. “Father? Priest guy? Anyone in here?”

>[X] Stay.

Okay, you know who these people are now. Or, you have a vague idea. An idea that gives you real unpleasant turnings in your stomach.

You sit tight as the dude follows her to the altar. That little itch in your spine tells you something’s about to turn sour, and you realize, quite abruptly, that it’s not your little itch at all. You’re hearing the internal machinery of that woman’s body winding tight – heart rate elevating, breath quickening, the twitch in her foot tapping faster and harder at the floor. Man, your ears are getting really good at this.

Eventually, a man in his forties shuffles out from somewhere off to the side of the altar, the broad white of a clerical collar around his neck and… what appears to be a cup of tea (Earl Grey, hint of lemon, according to your nose) in his hands.

“I’m here, my child.” The woman snorts visibly. You really really don’t like the way this is headed. “What is it exactly that you want?”

“Yeah, this places takes in homeless kids, right?” She practically interrupts him. “You taken in a girl, recently? Dark hair, bout yea tall, yea wide” – she traces out a small outline with her hands – “wears gothy little tramp stuff?”

“No…” The priest regards her with a concerned face. “We don’t generally house the unfortunate. You might want to try”–

She catches his hand. It’s fast – really fast. By the time his tea hits the floor she’s already shoved him up against the altar.

“Don’t lie to me!” Her voice is all barbed now, and has lost a little of its composure. “Never lie to me!”

“Kimura…” Her companion shifts nervously in his suit, eyes boggling a little. “This isn’t very discreet…”

>[X] Blam blam blam motherfuckers.

Okay, time to step in. This bitch needs to calm down.

You edge out of your seat and stride a little close. They’re way too busy to notice the vague displacement you etch in the air, and you get a shot off at about ten foot.

The dart sails through the air… and bounces straight off the back of her head. It doesn’t even break the skin – in fact, you’re pretty sure IT broke on contact with her skin.

Oh, shit.

She whips about, momentarily loosening her grip on Father Unlucky. Her eyes narrow for a moment, before focusing on the dart-thing-gun that – to her – is hovering in the middle of the aisle, apparently independent of any shooter. Her smile splits into a straight-up grin.

“Hah, yeah, last report said there could be a chameleon involved.” She lets the priest fall to the ground – after wrenching hard on his wrist, coaxing out a sickening crunch. This woman… might be kind of sick.

“You know, if you’ve put your hands anywhere near my little girl, I might have to cut something off. Just saying.”

Without warning, she dashes at you (or, rather, at your gun).

>[X] Dodge and throw away gun. Gimme a D20. >DC13 >+2 bonus for invisible. Rolled 9 >disgraceful failure

Holy shit, she’s fast. Not superhuman fast – you think – but still really damn quick.

You try to throw yourself aside but her hand’s around your wrist before you can get away. She squeezes – hard – and you suppress a yelp, dropping your weapon. Her grin – her seriously really fucking delighted what a wonderful tea party this is grin – is close now. She’s enjoying this immensely. Her heart rate just spiked, and while you can’t smell any perspiration on her (like, seriously, none at all; you’re pretty sure she doesn’t sweat), you’re close enough to feel her body heat bunching up in all the right places. You’re not sure, but you think she might even be a little… turned on?

“You smell lousy. Is my little girl’s little helper a hobo?” If her grin gets any wider it might split her face open. She makes to grab at your coat with her other arm. “I think they are! Let’s find out if you’re a boy hobo or a girl hobo…”

>[X] Fuck your eyes bitch >[X] Snark Oh, hell no.

“No thanks, lady. I usually prefer to wash up before playing doctor.”

“Hah! Boy hobo it is! Now, are you gonna be a good b”– She yelps in shock as you ram the knuckles of your forefinger and thumb straight up in her manic bitch eyes. It feels like trying to knuckle reinforced glass, but you clearly have some effect. Her grip loosens for a second and you wrench yourself free, while ‘Kimura’ recoils, nursing her eyes with one hand.

“That felt super weird…”

You glance beyond her for a second. Her companion appears to be loading one of those dart-gun thingys, but his hands are shaking and it’s not helping.

>[X] Run and grab Kev's friend >DC 13 >+2 invisibility bonus Rolled 16 >easymodo

You bolt. You need to get your ass outta here.

You race down the pews and scoop up Kevin’s friend, a tiny electrical jolt actually putting a little more spring in your step.

“A-ha!” Still rubbing her eyes with one hand, the psycho bitch dashes at you and swipes. You nearly jump out of your goddamn skin, but she misses, just about brushing your coat and stumbling straight past your trajectory, into the pews. “I’m coming to get you, darling! I’m gonna sew Laura’s goddamn mouth shut with your filthy hobo tongue in it! I’m”–

As she pulls herself up to take pursuit her partner practically stumbles into her.

“Kimura, this is getting too public. We can’t”–

“Shut up! Shut your little troll mouth! Shut”–

“We can’t risk publicity, Kimura!”

You hear a tiny click, like a radio switching on.

“…Blows from an unseen assailant have felled my partner.”

“What!? No they”–

Bam. You’re almost out the door, but you practically feel her dislocate his jaw. He hits the ground and you hear her come down on him, driving her fist into his face over and over and over. You get almost a full street away and the red on her hands is still in your nose.

You keep running.

>[X] Fucking... loop de loop, barrel roll, everything man >[X] It got two go-aheads so including the breaking & entering

You just run.

You’re heading home at first, but then you remember all that stuff about… pheromones or whatever. That guy had something that tracked them, or tracked you, or something. And ‘Kimura’ didn’t seem so shabby in the nasal department either.

You just… spangle off, like light over water. You don’t even know where you’re going or what you’re doing. For a moment you consider buying some soap or something, but where the hell would you wash? Take a dip in the parks this time of year and you’re just inviting a very cold, very uncomfortable death. Hell, walk around wet and you’re guaranteeing frostbite.

You run through alleys. You push through crowds and when you can you loop around and take another route. When you can’t run anymore you jog. And when you can’t do that anymore, you find a convenient fire escape to scale, and start peering through windows. Gotta get clean. Eventually you find a place that looks just about empty and put your ear to the glass.

>Perception test >DC13

>+3 bonus Rolled 16

>GREAT SUCCESS!

Seems like no one’s in.

As quietly as possible, you ease up the window, awkwardly manoeuvring yourself and your prone companion over the ledge. It’s a small place, so finding the bathroom isn’t hard. You track wet bootprints fucking everywhere, but you’re too scared to think about it until it’s way too late.

Propping Kevin’s friend up against the bathroom door (which elicits a short, bright romance of electricity between her hair and the doorknob), you strip down and get in the shower – your first shower in what’s gotta be four whole months. The water and the soap washes away some of the tension in your shoulders, but still, you pretty much shake your way through the whole thing, unable to get truly comfortable.

That woman killed that guy. You sensed it. You could smell just how much blood and… stuff her hands were delving through. Yesterday, you had no idea how fresh human brain smelled. Now you do.

You scrub down your clothes and get out. Luckily, the place has a tumble drier, so you shove them in there for a while, and somewhat shamefully swipe a fresh item of underwear to wear around (being naked in someone else’s house feels super weird). You’ve been there just over an hour when you drag your clothes out and throw them back on.

You get ready to leave, but something catches your eye. Sitting on a mantelpiece just above the TV, there’s a seriously overstuffed swear jar positively bristling with dollar notes. Temptation gnaws at you.

>[X] Just leave. >You Didn’t Activate My Trap Card! >+1 karma!

You ignore it. You’ve spoiled their towels on hobo dick and pits, and furthermore, the man of the house is down one set of boxers. You’ve taken enough.

You pick up Kev’s friend (man, you really should have made a point of remembering her name. Your internal monologue is starting to get kinda awkward) and head out the window, shutting it carefully on the way out. As it closes, you hear the front door open, and pick up the pace. Nothing you can do about the tracks, but there’s likely a million guys with your shitty boots in the city.

You climb down to the street below and contemplate... things in general.

>Hunger Level: 5

>[X] Home.

You plod home.

Technically, today was a win. You saved Kevin’s friend. You didn’t get fried, you didn’t get shot, and you didn’t get punched till you brain squeezes its way outta your skull. Those are all very good things. But still, you feel defeated somehow. You knew that Laura was complicated, but you’re not sure that, until now, you understood just how complicated. The sickening thud of Kimura’s fist against that guy’s head echoes like a primal drumbeat in the back of your skull. Crunch, crunch, crunch…

It takes you an hour and a half to get back, on account of being slightly lost. It’s three-thirty – not too long till Laura’s supposed to head out. You trudge up the stairs to your ruined little abode and head in.

Laura perks up on the sofa, sniffing the air. Kevin is sitting on the floor, cross-legged and fiddling with these little bits of metal wire he must’ve picked up somewhere, making sculptures or something. Huh.

“Noriko!” Ah, that was it. “You found her!”

“Yep.” You set her down on the mattress. “She’s been doped. Watch her, yeah? Make sure she doesn’t choke or something.”

He nods. Laura fixes you with her near-unblinking stare.

“You smell much better.”

>[X] “Laura, we need to talk.” >[X] “I’m gonna go get food.”

You decide not to freak Kevin out yet.

“I’m gonna go get food. Laura, you wanna come with?”

She stares again, but nods. You two make your way out. On the way down the stairs, Laura looks up at you, and you notice something like a frown on her face. Something like that. She can be real hard to read.

“Are… are you frustrated? Or displeased? You smell agitated somehow.”

“Oh, uh, nah. We have to talk, though.”

“Alright.”

>[X] “Who is Kimura?” >[X] “Who exactly are you running from, Laura?” >[X] “Why are people so intent on catching you? Who are you?”

“Okay.” You two descend to the ground floor, passing by the blasted, ruined doorways and the ever- watching procession of shadows. “Who is Kimura?”

She stops, and turns to you. And you know now that what you’re seeing there is fear – real, tangible fear, etched right down to the roots of those evergreen eyes.

“You have met Kimura?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “Listen, I need to know who exactly you’re runni”–

“I must leave.” She states, flatly, and picks up her pace ahead of you.

Hey, wait, what?

>[X] “Hey, no, you can’t just do that.” >[X] “Where the hell are you even going?” >[X] “I’ll just follow.”

“Hey, no, you can’t just do that.” You pick up your pace after her, but she seems determined to stay ahead, put some distance between you. “Where the hell are you even going?”

“I do not know. Anywhere.” She replies, quickly, like a fencer bringing their blade to the defence.

You march out after her into the cold.

“I’ll just follow, you know.”

She stops abruptly, and turns round, her brow furrowed deeply.

“Then… I will make sure that you cannot.”

Roll to be empathic and shit, guys. >DC13 >+2 bonus for current Relationship Rolled 15 + 2

>success

She walks towards you, a particularly grim absence of expression on her face. Man, you don’t wanna get kung-fu’d. But, surprisingly, you’re even less excited by the prospect of Laura leaving. Hah. A year ago you’d probably have stolen her wallet or something.

“Listen, you can…” You stretch for the words. “…kung-fu me or whatever, but sooner or later I will get up and I will make it my goddamn mission to find those people you’re running from. Or they’ll find me, whichever’s first.”

She stops and clenches her fists. You edge closer.

“I'm in this too, now. They know we're affiliated, and that bitch Kimura probably just told her friends I'm guilty of bashing her partner's brain out. I get that you're trying to protect me, but the best way to protect me is to actually tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Closer. She looks up at you, and she’s tired, and afraid, and angry. You’re finally seeing more than shadows reflected in her. She’s more human now than you’ve ever known her to be. Her shoulders sag inwards.

“I can’t do this.” She states it flatly at first, but by time it’s all out her voice is trembling. “I can’t stop her. I can’t even hurt her. And she will never stop. She’ll never ever stop.”

She leans forward. You can feel her hair against your chest. It’s kinda greasy.

“I will never, ever get away from her.”

Slowly, a warm dampness begins to spread across your shirt. You smell salt.

>[X] Write in

You sort of just stand there for a moment, in dumb, awkward silence, as the stain on your shirt gradually expands. Eventually, you put your arms around her, tentatively at first. You were kinda expecting her to flinch, or pull away or something, but she doesn’t. Instead she buries her face further, and the silent tears become long, heavy sobs.

So, you stand there for a while, in the cold, and the snow, and the warmth.

Eventually – you’re not sure how long, but it feels like a while – she seems to stop.

“Maybe alone you can’t. But you’re not alone.” You fidget a little awkwardly. Yeah, this is… well past your yearly quota on genuine human contact. “Besides, I hurt her eyes.”

For a moment Laura seems even stiller, if possible, before she looks up. Her face is streaked with tears and there’s snot just… just everywhere… but you think she might be smiling a little.

“No, you didn’t. She’s just more sensitive there.”

“Oh.” You say, a little deflated. “Well, I’m pretty sure that girl upstairs, Norio”–

“Noriko.”

“Noriko – I’m pretty sure she’s an electric nuke.”

She untangles herself, and sits down, wiping snot and tear-water all over her hoodie.

“Come on. Let’s get that food.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DQ7TsX4vcQ

THREAD 06: END

Thread 07 You are John James Green, plucky(ish) mutant hobo.

It’s 6:00 AM in the morning, and you’re staring at your hand. You woke up early out of habit, but soon remembered that you’re not signed up with the Bugle today, and felt yourself easing back into the

ethereal mid-point between wakefulness and dreaming. Then you noticed the little sparks occasionally crackling at the tips of your fingers and spent a fair bit of time just watching that.

At first you were a little afraid that the electrical girl had done something to you, or left some kind of charge in your body, but it doesn’t hurt… so… you guess this is some natural evolution of your x-gene? You briefly wonder if maybe you kind of adapted to the consistent electrical exposure of yesterday, but brush it off. You’ve met other mutants, after all, and you’ve never spontaneously developed their powers.

You heave yourself up off the ragged old sofa that serves as your bed, shuffling toward the window. The city beyond the scar is a muffled blur of falling snow, the mottled grey of concrete mingling with the grey of the horizon. Temperature’s still dropping. Three weeks till Christmas now? Two? You haven’t the slightest clue anymore.

Laura & Noriko are both asleep on the mattress (though you doubt that Laura’s actually asleep). The little electric witch hasn’t so much as stirred since yesterday, so whatever you doped her with must’ve been powerful. Kevin’s on the floor.

>Current Funds: $95.5 >$30 (Laura) >$26 (Kevin)

>[X] Head out to the Bugle. Gotta sign up for tomorrow. >[X] Go get breakfast for everyone.

Reluctantly unspooling yourself from a cocoon of old blankets, you make your way out. It seems almost strange, being worried about a little job chucking papers at people when there’s all this other shit crowding in on your life, but you need to eat. And so does Laura, and Kevin, and (assumedly) Noriko.

The city gradually ventures out into the cold as you make your way toward the Bugle, the guttural snores of early-morning commuters slowly but surely rising into a great, collective yawn composed of taxis, buses, and feet on pavement. You stop by a McDonalds and pick up basically everything that costs a dollar, stowing the bags under your coat. Gotta find a better way of keeping warm – you’re cool with smelling like old alleys and ages of dead skin, but lugging all this food around under your coat is starting to impress upon you the classy aroma of fast food. And now that you’re getting better with your nose, you’re realizing just how long these scents last. To Laura you must smell like all the leftover KFC in the world.

You get into the Bugle a little before 7 o’clock. There’s someone else at the desk this time, this skinny dude who informs you that Vanessa is off sick, but you get yourself scheduled in for tomorrow morning.

>[X] Ask if you can sign up several days in advance. >[X] Ask how Peter’s doing.

“Oh, uh, I was wondering…” The guy looks back up at you with a surprised expression. He clearly expected you to be gone already. “Is it possible to sign me in for the next few days? Is that alright?”

“Hrmmm…” You get the impression that you’re wasting valuable time that this guy COULD be doing nothing with. As if it were a Herculean effort, he flips his little notepad back open. “Yeah, sure, why not? I can put you in for two days in advance.”

“Thanks, man.” You say, awkwardly, and fish for something to break the silence as he copies your name into the next few pages. “So, uh, how’s Peter? He didn’t look so great last time I saw him.”

“Excuse me?” The guy furrows his brow. “Oh, Parker? The intern? He’s not in this morning. Some kind of family emergency.”

>[X] Ask what kind of emergency. Rolled 19 >astounding success >you are so so dapper

“Oh, sorry to hear that. You know what it is?”

He breathes a deep, exasperated sigh, but a quick glance assures him that there’s no queue he can use to excuse brushing you off.

“Something about his aunt? Or his girlfriend? Someone female had an accident.” Wow, that’s kind of vague and useless and exceedingly disregardful. “To be honest, he’s done this a few times before. There’s always a girlfriend or a classmate or an aunt that fell down the stairs or whatever. He’s probably sitting on his couch playing videogames.”

Oh. “I… see. Well, uh, hope everything’s okay. He seems like a nice guy.”

You think this guy might gouge his eyes out to be rid of you soon, so you excuse yourself and head back out into the cold.

>[X] Paper. >[X] Stove.

You grab a paper and head on your way. Keeping food warm is starting to get icky and takeout is relatively expensive, so it’s time to make good on that little promise you made yourself a day or two ago that you’d pick up a stove.

You scan through the paper as you scan the streets for a thrift store. The front page is a huge splash, declaring in bold lettering that TRIPLE TERROR: SPIDER-MAN TEAMS UP WITH SANDMAN AND THE GREEN GOBLIN. Apparently they attacked some science museum during a school trip and some students got hurt. There’s a follow-up about Jack and its distributors, but the story seems to be losing steam – nobody seems to want to acknowledge that how MCA has been turning the increasingly homeless mutant population towards drug dependency. Hell, you know most other papers are pretty much focusing on the whole ‘Mutants! They could explode in your face!’ aspect of the story.

You try a few second-hand shops before you find one with a working stove, but find one you do, parting with $15 for it. You make a mental note to pick up some matches and a bit of extra fuel when you can.

>Current Funds: $80.5 >Hunger Level: 4

>[X] Home sweet home.

Well, the food’s just about smushed up enough for Noriko to imbibe intravenously by now, so it’s about time to head home.

On your way back to the scar you stop briefly to get those matches and pick up a little more fuel. Just enough that you won’t be running out in the middle of burning something up.

You get home at 8:20, and find a living room devoid of Noriko or Kevin. A throaty gurgle from the direction of the bathroom tells you that the neon-haired wonder is in fact awake and barfing gratuitously (into a totally dry sink, most likely. That’s gonna smell for a while). Laura appears to be… meditating or something. You notice a thin gauze of moisture across her hoodie – she’s been out, briefly.

>[X] Meeting >[X] Food

“Hey, dorm meeting guys!” You call out, and quickly add: “There’s food too.”

You unpack the beaten-up McDonalds stuff and set your recent purchases to the side. You were a bit worried that there might not be enough for four mouths to munch on, but seeing as Noriko’s evacuating her everything in the other room, she’s probably not up for stuffing herself yet. So there should be enough McNuggets and smushy burgers to go round.

Laura glances out from under a half-closed eyelid, before untangling herself from the lotus position and padding over.

“Good morning.”

“Yeah. Not bad.” You reply. It wasn’t so bad. Nobody nearly broke your wrist, for one (that said, your hand’s feeling much better now. You were expecting it to hurt for days).

Eventually Noriko and Kevin emerge from the bathroom, traversing the treacherously flat and unobstructed footing of the apartment floor as a single, lurching being. Kevin looks vaguely like he’s just returned from the Somme, whereas Noriko… is about as pasty and sticky as you’d expect her to be. They sit down and stare at you expectantly (well, Laura and Kevin do. Noriko stares at the floor).

>[X] Powers. >[X] Creeper.

“Okay, firstly, hey… Noriko, right?” She looks up from her intense groundstaring to nod feebly. “I’m John, or JJ, whatever’s good.”

You’re gripped by a sudden nervousness. Is this what being a teacher feels like? You’ve got all these people looking at you and expecting all kinds of shit, and really, you’re not even sure what’s supposed to be happening here at all. You’re not even entirely sure what’s going on – especially with the Laura thing. You decide to stick with what you know.

“I think we need to know what we can do. Mutant-wise. Laura, you can smell stuff good and heal, right?”

She nods. “I am also capable of projecting nine inch claws from my hands and feet. My enhanced healing factor allows me to resist the effects of lactic acid and function and peak efficiency for longer than normally possible.”

“Right.” Okay. You weren’t really expecting that. Huh. “I can turn invisible and my senses are pretty good, kinda like that one superhero… the one who’s obviously that lawyer guy? You know the one?”

“Daredevil.” Chimes in Kevin.

“Yeah, him. I also might be electric. Which brings us to…”

On cue, Noriko raises her ridiculous blue head and squints at you.

“I don’t know…” She sighs hoarsely, cupping her head in her palms. “I take in electricity and shoot it out. Something like that. There’s no… off switch, though.”

“Yeah, I can turn mine off either.” Inserts Kevin, in that small, underwhelming voice of his. “I just turn whatever I touch to dust. Uh, anything biological, that is.”

“Right. Well, now that’s out the way…” You steel yourself, gouging out a bite of nonspecific mush burger. “We need to talk about a guy called Creeper…”

>[X] Describe Creeper. >[X] Ask how much Jack they’ve got between them.

“Creeper is not a good guy. I…” You furrow your brow in irritation at your past self. What the hell were you even thinking back then? “…did a few jobs for him a year or two back, and believe me, he showed me just how scummy the scum of this city can get. He runs Jack distribution across a good stretch of the city, and last I heard he did it on the behalf of Wilson Fisk, who needs no introduction.”

Indeed he doesn’t. The mention of the Kingpin is enough to guarantee absolute attention. Even Laura seems to stare harder, if that were possible.

“He’s a vanisher like me, but he’s better than me at it, and his powers are…” You strain to simplify it, and end up just being kinda lame “…different, somehow. And he’s relevant because you stole his stuff, and he wants it back. Now, I know your friend had some of it, but Kevin said you had the larger share.”

You look at Noriko, who is staring at the ground again, as if staring hard enough would cause her to just fall right in and disappear from all this shit.

“I… I have some of it, but these guys attacked me at one of the parks, and I just, I dunno, I dropped a lot of it.” She brings her hands up to massage her temple. You can practically hear the sound of headstones falling in her skull. “I panicked.”

“…What do you have?”

She pauses, and fishes a bulbous, overstuffed little doggie bag out of her jacket. Looks like just over $100. Shit.

>[X] Take the Jack

“Okay, look, I know your powers, and Kev's, are really problematic and Jack's an easy solution that also makes life suck less, but we're going to get them under control the hard way.”

You hold out your hand. Noriko regards you suspiciously, looking for just a moment like she might retract her arm out of pure need, but eventually she drops the overstuffed bag in your palm. You stow it away under the puffy masses of your coat and nod approvingly.

“I know it’s not easy, but this shit is too dangerous. You can only go so long before a bad trip takes you over the edge. And then you either burn out, or the cops shoot you for blowing up a café or something.”

Kevin half-raises a tentative hand.

“Uh… what did you do?” What? “For Creeper, I mean. What stuff did you do for him?”

>[X] The Fully Monty

You sigh. Oh boy.

This must be how parents feel when it’s time to talk about the birds an’ the bees. ‘Son, I know you might not understand it now, and you might feel a little weird about what I’m about to tell you, but for most of us, there comes a time in a hobo’s life when he really really has to eat…’ etc etc etc.

“Do you guys know what a drug mule is?” Laura nods. Kevin doesn’t. Noriko burps a vicious, sicky- smelling miasma and quietly apologizes. Ew.

“Right, back then I could barely use my powers.” Yes, contextualize. That will make it much better. “I’d just arrived in the city and I was hungry, and tired, and possibly stupid. I did some work unloading shit at the docks, and that put me in touch with some guys that needed some other stuff moved around. I was a kid, so I was perfect for ferrying drugs. And for a while, I thought it was great.”

You lean back and let the memories simmer up in your brain, bloody and bruised and reeking.

“Creeper gave me a shower, he gave me clean clothes, he gave me warm food... hell, he even gave me some local school uniform so I’d be less conspicuous. So I ran drugs around for him, till eventually I was starting to really get a grip on disappearing.”

You bite your lip.

“The Jack game wasn’t as big back then. Fisk wasn’t interested yet, so Creeper had to make more money elsewhere. It was petty theft, pretty much. I’d fade out, beat someone till they’re not moving, and take all their stuff… and that was that. Eventually I realized what a total scumbag Creeper was, and I cut ties.” That being a story for another day.

The three stare at you intently. You’re not sure what you see in their eyes, and you’re not sure you want to know.

>[X] Ask Noriko about her ‘father’ coming to pick her up.

You don’t like the silence that’s settled in the wake of your grand disclosure, so you break it as soon as possible.

“Noriko, do you have family in the city?”

“What?” She raises an eyebrow. “Hell no. Not that I know of. My family is in Japan. And, believe me, they are NOT flying a few thousand miles to come get me.”

“Okay, just making sure.”

Shit. That means those guys were pretty much guaranteed Creeper boys. So he knows what she looks like, and he knows she’s still in the city. And if he’s at all thorough, he probably knows that she dropped a load of her Jack stash.

Run: 2 votes Stay: 5 votes

“I’m gonna talk to Creeper.” You decide aloud. You’re not friends with the guy and, in many ways, he’s pretty much all the worst things about living on the streets rolled into one, but he’s not… uncivilized. He probably considers himself very civilized indeed. “He knows me, so maybe we can work something out. We might be able to pay him back, or do him a favour or something.”

You elect to omit that the last time you met ended with your fist all up in his face, mostly because Kevin seems really shifty about this whole thing. You pretty much had your suspicions when you first ran into him, but the guy is NOT built for the homeless life. Anyhow, Creeper’s a businessman. He hates being embarrassed but he hates falling profits far, far more. Criminals are mostly the same – grease their palms up enough and they can push all that dignity and pride crap to the black pit at the back of their skulls. That same place they left their empathy, and their charity, and their basic human decency.

“Worst case, my powers could help me steal enough stuff to make up for his loss. And he should be satisfied with that.” Should. Things change, after all. You didn’t think about it before, but now you find yourself considering what ways in which the Creeper of two years ago could be from the Creeper of today.

“We do have something else to talk about, though…”

You look at Laura. She grimaces very slightly and clenches her fists against her knees.

>[X] Look expectantly

You stay quiet, and just look expectantly at Laura and wait. Guess it’s Opposites Day.

Eventually, she glances between the other two, and opens her mouth.

“I am being pursued by a private military corporation for…” Kevin’s eyes have bulged a bit out of their sockets. Noriko has a perfect storm of ‘wait, what?’ and ‘uuurgh I feel sick’ roiling across her features. Laura pauses for a moment, as if grappling for the right words. “…unlawful ownership of their assets.”

As far as you can tell she owns pretty much nothing other than the clothes on her back. So that comes as a bit of a surprise.

“After encountering me several days ago, their agents should have assumed that I have left the state, as per standard operating procedure. But…” She glances up at you briefly. “I did not. I thought they would shift to tracking me to another state, but it seems that they are still focusing their efforts here. Yesterday, John encountered two of their operatives in the city.”

The other two sit in stunned silence for a moment. Eventually, Noriko lets her forehead fall into her palms.

“…I need a fucking paracetamol or some shit.”

>[X] “What do you mean by ‘assets’?”

“Assets?” You cock your head to the side, wracking your brain for a moment. Nope, nothing. As far as you know all she owns is a set of vaguely gothic clothes, and if a morally questionable PMC is interested in those then someone somewhere is wasting a great deal of money. “Laura, not to be rude or anything, but… what could you possibly by carrying that’s worth all this trouble? That corset thingy doesn’t even have pockets.”

She frowns at you, but you quickly realizes it’s not an angry or a pointed one – in fact, it’s not directed at you at all. She just happens to be facing you. She’s turning something over and over in her head, until…

“Me.”

“What?” You deftly save yourself from choking on McNugget, and without visible signs of struggle, too.

“Me. I am a clone.”

Oh no there is again all up in your oesophagus.

>[X] Write in.

“Okay…” Right, what else can you say? How do you respond to something like that? You glance at Noriko & Kevin, and apparently they have pretty much the same grasp on the situation as you.

“Why were you…” Cloned? No, that’s wrong, the cloned party is the copied one, not the copy? Manufactured? Too inhuman. Born? You don’t know if she was actually born in the el classico sense –

“Made?” She interjects flatly.

You nod.

“Tactical espionage, assassination, personal security… there are many applications for a mutant with my powerset.”

Okay then. Moving on.

Roll to grok.

Rolled 14 + 3

“Well, one of these guys from this…” Cloning station? Clone factory? “…facility ran into me yesterday. So now they’re after both of us, I guess. She was pretty much bulletproof, so that’s… kind of a problem for all of us.”

Now that the lights have been switched on over the mystery of Laura, you find yourself intensely, strangely, uncomfortable. You were hoping to get everything all sorted and neatly stacked, ready to solve, but instead you feel as though you’ve made a mess somehow. The other two are looking at her like she’s dangerous and/or insane, and you have no idea what’s on your face, and she…

…You realize that she, in all likelihood, feels pretty much the same. A surge of empathy rushes through you.

Unexpectedly – even to yourself – you shift a little closer, wrapping your arm over her shoulders and putting on what you assume is a smile. She flinches, just like she did yesterday, but the tension soon uncoils from her, seeping away, and you feel it do the same across you too. Her head rests tentatively against your shoulder.

>[X] Ask what the hell can be done about this PMC. >[X] That’s enough drama for now. Rest a bit before you have to go meet Creeper.

“I guess… you know these guys pretty much better than anyone. How do we stop them?

Oh, sorry, did that sound like you were actually considering brawl with what honestly seems a lot like the fucking Umbrella Corporation? Because damn what the hell where’d you get the idea that you could actually be a fighter? Or that you could be at all meaningful on the scale we seem to be talking?

Laura shifts a little, burrowing deeper into your coat.

“I have purchased a map and marked their major operating centres within the centre.” Huh. So that’s what she went out for. “Conceivably it could be possible to draw attention to them. Somehow.”

That sounds like an alright idea. Kimura didn’t seem to bothered about it, but her partner had a hella hardon for remaining far from the public eye. A hardon so strong that it ended up pretty much killing him.

“Alright then. I think we can talk about that later. We’ve gotten an alright enough grip on things.”

Without the constraints of conversation to hold them back, the others dig in to their food, and soon there’s little else left but paper bags and an overpowering smell of grease. You decide to relax a while and let things ruminate before your upcoming date with the most unpleasant man you know.

>[X] Make sure Noriko’s okay.

Welp, Noriko’s kind of worrying you, what with the vomiting and the unpleasant gastrointestinal ejections and such. A lot of it’s normal, but she seems… pretty much way worse off than Kevin, who’s still pale and sunken around the eyes but at least not evacuating everything he eats.

She’s retreated back to the bathroom for now, and though you’re no longer hearing the sounds of mountains copulating from her stomach, you’re not quite content to sit back and wait for the thunder.

Telling Laura that you’ll be back, you follow her into the dimly-lit restroom.

The first thing you notice, before you even register the place visually, is the awful smell. Everything she’s vomited up is gradually edging its way down a drain, and with no running water to help it on its way, it’s really taking its time. And, of course, you smell ALL of it.

Noriko is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her hands clamped about her arms, as if that would somehow stop her skin from shaking. For the first time, you notice that her nails are blue too.

>[X] "How's it going?" >[X] Written in stuff.

“How’s it going?”

“Like shitting razorblades.”

Right, yeah, you pretty much knew it’d be something like that. You were really just getting a conversation started. She’s certainly a great deal more outspoken than your other companions, though that might just be the catastrophically sudden Jack detox speaking.

“Yeah… sorry for tranquilizing you. That probably didn’t help.” You lean in against the basin, staying a little light on your feet. You can’t shake the impression that she’s suddenly gonna just drop forward onto her face. “You were sort of exploding, though.”

She licks her lips and sneers a little at the taste. Yep, they’re probably pretty disgusting.

“…Did I hurt anyone?”

“Huh?”

“When I overloaded? Did I hurt anyone?”

“Oh.” You smile a little. “Nah. Not unless you’re counting land rovers. And I’m not, seeing as they are ugly bricks of shit.”

She chuckles a bit and grips harder at her arms, swaying back and forth for a moment.

“You want a blanket? The shakes are just gonna get worse for a while.”

She nods. You quickly dart out and grab one from the sofa, untangling it from the cocoon you’d arranged for yourself. You bring it in and pass it to her.

>[X] Ask how long she’s been on the drug. >[X] Tell her what she can expect from withdrawal. >[X] Ask if her powers were acting normally yesterday or if she just had a bad trip.

You sit down beside her as she wrestles the blanket over her shoulders.

“How long have you been on Jack?”

“About…” She grimaces and pulls the blanket tighter, her teeth chattering a little. “About as long as I’ve been in the city. So a while.”

That doesn’t sound good. You don’t push the matter further, but you’re definitely not going anywhere for now. Jack withdrawal can be utterly brutal – not just physically, but psychologically. Probably the most overlooked aspect of the drug is the mundane one. Strip away all the mutant crap and it’s an incredibly potent feelgood drug. It makes you feel like things are okay, and they’re gonna keep being okay. It makes you feel warm, wanted, loved. Safe. And suddenly not feeling any of that anymore… it can be pretty rough.

“You know what to expect from this?”

“Sort of.” She answers. “I know there are shakes, and vomiting.”

“Yeah, the shakes are gonna last a while.” She deserves to at least know what’s happening to her. You kind of built her up as some irresponsible brat in your head, but she seems like an alright person. “You’re past the first wave of vomiting, but there’s gonna be more, eventually. You’ll start feeling tired and itchy, especially around the eyes… and then the very last of the effects will wear off, and you’ll feel terrible. I can’t speak from experience, but from what I’ve been told, it’s sort of like this… big, black hole opens up in your chest, and for a while you can’t feel anything but all the bad stuff the drug’s been keeping away.”

You glance over at her. She’s trying to grit her teeth, but her eyes are terrified.

“It’ll pass, though.”

You decide to move the conversation on a bit. No point in lingering on all the horrible shit that’s about to happen to her. There’s something you’ve been wondering since yesterday, anyhow.

“Noriko… when you… overloaded back there… is that something that just happens? Or was that the Jack?”

Her thin veneer of grit gives way to a haunted, tired expression.

“It’s why I needed the Jack.” She’s speaking softly now, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. “I just… suck up the static from everything. It builds and builds and builds… and eventually I can’t even aim it anymore.”

>[X] “Have you tried grounding yourself or something?” >[X] “Do you have any idea how to control your powers?” >[X] “You need a drink or something?"

“Have you tried… have you tried…” You strain to summon all your middle school science to the forefront of your brain. God, it’s been so long. “…grounding yourself, or something?”

She nods shakily. “Yeah. I mean, I had a go. But I went through metal so quickly. It’d just blast apart or melt.”

“You got any idea how to control your powers?”

“A little.” She unfastens one of her hands, and you notice visible bruises where she’s been digging into her arms. A bright arc of focused electricity dances between her fingers, and leap out to etch a tiny scar across the tiled walls. “I can sort of… push it in a direction. When there’s too much power stored it’s hard to throw it in small amounts, though. It’s like… opening a door during a storm. When the breeze is gentle, you can keep it ajar, but when it’s too strong for you the door is either open or closed.”

Huh. That was unexpectedly detailed.

“You need a…” You were gonna say water, but you don’t have any. Just stupid soda stuff. Dammit. You make a note to give Kevin a shopping list before you head out. “I’ll make sure Kevin gets you some water in a bit, okay?”

She nods and reattaches her hand to her arm.

“You don’t have to stick around, by the way. I’m a big girl.”

>[X] “Actually you’re kind of petite.” >[X] “I don’t have to, but this stuff isn’t easy. I doubt you want to go it alone.”

“Actually you’re kind of petite.”

She chuckles again, but midway it morphs into a short string of coughing. Yeah, Kevin’s gonna need that list.

“And you’re… what?” She squints at you, grinning loosely. “A lizard elf?”

“I’m a complicated mutant and no one understands me but my lizard elf woman.”

Oh, Shaft, how would you possibly be funny without his grandiose leavings to pick at?

“Anyhow… I don’t have to be here, yeah, but this stuff isn’t easy. I doubt you want to go it alone. That can be messy.”

“Messier than this?” She motions makes a sweeping motion with her arms, as if to indicate her entire sopping, shivering self.

“Much.”

>[X] Ask why she’s here. In America, seeing as her family is like a bazillion miles away. >[X] Ask how she met Kevin.

“Hey, if it’s not too much to ask… why’re you even here? In America, I mean. You said your family was in Japan.”

She slouches forward. For a second you think she might be about to spew intestinal fluid all over the floor, but she just cups her head in her palms, still smiling grimly.

“My dad didn’t really approve of the mutant thing.” Right, yeah. You should really count yourself lucky that your own parents were the supportive type when it came to this stuff. Of course, they never really got to figuring out that you were a mutant… but they would’ve been cool. You’re certain of it. “He couldn’t deal with it. He wanted to try all this weird medical shit. My mother probably misses me, I think… but I doubt he’d let me come home even if I wanted to, now.”

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s… it’s nothing now.”

Right.

“So, how’d you meet Kevin? You guys bump into each other at Hot Topic or something?”

“Hah.” She leans back and grins slightly. “We met at the border. Some guy was getting on his case about his ID, and, y’know, that got me and my fake-ass ID nervous… and things went downhill from there. I guess I got a friend out of it, though.”

>[X] Let her get a question in. >[X] Leave her be.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“You said you came to the city a few years back.” You did? Oh, yeah… you did. How’d you go and let that slip? “Why? It’s only fair, seeing as I’ve spilled my whole life’s story for you.”

You straighten up a bit and cough awkwardly, trying to rally yourself for a moment. She’s pretty much right – fair is fair. Still, scintillating as the young lady is, you’re not really all too comfortable with the idea of dropping everything in her lap. She probably doesn’t want most of it there, anyhow. You’re not even sure how much of it you want.

“You’re right, I’m not from around here. I grew up in Michigan.” You remember the roar of waves. Dunes, shifting. Grass whistling under the bellows of the wind. “Basically, my mom and dad passed away and I just lost it. I ran. Back when I started out, the MCA was weaker. You could jump states more easily. Now I’m pretty much locked in here with you guys.”

Lots of holes in that version, but it’s the version you’re comfortable with.

“Anyhow, I’d better get going. Keep trucking, yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem.”

You leave, and you get ready to meet the most unpleasant man you’ve ever known. You’re not shaking.

>THREAD 07: END

THREAD 08

You’re John James Green, homeless mutant extraordinaire. You’re about to meet one of the most disagreeable people you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to cross paths with – and, surprise surprise, you’re actually doing this willingly. Less than an hour ago you and your companions-in-vagrancy sat down and came to the conclusion that best way to address their various ills would be to stand and face them – meet Creeper and work out some kind of deal.

You don’t want to work for him again – you really, really don’t want to work with him again – but it’s either that or you all pack up and leave town. And seeing as the border is about 50-60% Sentinel these days, you don’t much fancy your chances there.

It’ll be a one-time thing. You’ll work something out and then all this will be behind you.

Your watch tells you it’s 9:20, AM. The snow has lifted somewhat outside, but if you know wintertime NY it’ll come down hard in the afternoon. You’re in your dilapidated little shelter. Noriko’s in the bathroom, the aftereffects of Jack dependency burning through her. Laura & Kevin are in the sitting room.

>Current Funds: $80 >$28 (Laura). >$26 (Kevin).

Hunger Level: 3

>[X] Practice

You amble back into the living room, watching your fingertips for any occasional sparks. You think you might know how to flip the ‘on switch’ for it, but it’s not quite like your ability to fade out. Going invisible is like someone’s turned all the lights down over you – you probably couldn’t quite explain it in words, but it definitely feels like something. This is different. You see the sparks, but you don’t feel anything running through your hands.

Kevin’s still eating. Laura appears to have finished some time ago and is reviewing her map.

>[X] See if Laura can help you practice something.

“Hey, Laura, you mind giving a hand with something?”

She glances up from her work, and after a quick but visible bit of internal deliberation, folds it away into the front pocket of her hoodie. You didn’t really get much of a good look at what she was scrawling all over that map, but it looked vaguely like the most complicated spider diagram ever.

“I have the time.” dfjasijfdf

“Great. I was just wondering if you could, I dunno, help me get a handle on some of my abilities. Before I go see Creeper.”

She nods, and stands up.

“I believe there is a useful exercise that I could assist you with.”

She actually smiles a little. Uh, what?

>Roll a D20 >No exact DC for this one

Rolled 13

Almost three quarters of an hour later you’re looking back on the decision to ask Laura for some tips and questioning the sanity of the idea.

You’re half a block from the apartment, atop one of the far more badly battered buildings near the edge of the scar, where some kind of heat weapon must have scored a path through most of the housing in the neighbourhood. The fire escape at your feet is twisted nearly beyond recognition, taking some real inventive climbing to make your way up. You’re breathing hard, blood pounding in your ears and adrenaline filling your lungs with fire. The cold is almost an afterthought; an annoying buzz hanging over your shoulder.

You were pretty surprised to find that Laura’s special training regime was pretty much a game of tag, but you can’t deny the results. You haven’t had a workout like this in months, maybe years, and you clearly underestimated the level of escalation that superpowers can bring to a simple child’s game. She tracks you easily, but actually touching you when you’re invisible is a different matter – more than once you were seemingly cornered, but shifting out of sight allowed you to just about evade her grasp.

You think you’re in the clear for now, and take a moment to lap greedily at the cold air. Suddenly, however, you hear something whistle through the air nearby, and a shadow passes over you. Before you can react, a small hand smacks the top of your head. Laura lands beside you with a soft ‘whump’.

“Tag.” >Hunger Level: 4 Rolled 13 - 1

Okay, well. It’s what, an hour on, and you still haven’t caught her?

You came pretty close back at the furniture store, very nearly catching up to her, but she managed to just about give you the slip. Your invisibility is pretty much useless for actually sneaking up on her – here it just obscures your movements – so you’ve had to rely on speed, wit, and general fitness to stay on her tail. And it seems (not surprisingly) that Laura is faster, and wittier, and generally fitter than you are.

You chased her all the way to an abandoned parking lot, further on into the scar where the houses give way a long, skeletal stretch of (former) chain stores and restaurants. You’re on one side of a scrapped

SUV, she’s pressed up against the other. You’re not moving for now, that you know she’ll just dart when you make a move.

You can’t quite tell, but you’re pretty sure she’s enjoying this.

Rolled 20 - 2

Sweet, sweet victory.

You decided to push yourself to the limit and make one last grand huzzah at the whole thing – and, to your surprise, it worked.

As expected, Laura bolted the moment you made an attempt at sliding over the SUV. She made it as far as the ruined Starbucks on the other end of the street, before unexpectedly trapping herself when it turned out that the stairs to the roof had collapsed in on themselves. You two circled around each other for a short while before you rallied the effort for one last burst of invisibility and managed to bring her down.

You’re lying on the frozen ground, gasping for air. Victory feels a lot like a punch in the gut. Your legs are live wires full of searing lactic acid. Laura is smiling almost broadly, the blood glowing brightly under her skin. You can smell the adrenaline pulsing through her, steadily winding away, powering down.

>Hunger Level: 5 >Time: 11:20

>[X] Food. >[X] Home.

Once the halo of adrenaline circling above the both of you fades, you begin to realize just how hungry all that running around and jumping through rubble has made you, your stomach suddenly awakening as all the other parts of you involved in the running and the jumping start to wind down. Laura doesn’t seem to have quite the same problem, but she accompanies you out of the scar anyway.

Now that you have some cooking utensils, you can pick up something that isn’t thrown at you over a counter. And if you’re not mistaken, there’s a room nearby yours that accumulates a great deal of snow – might as well be a freezer in there. Perfect.

It takes you a little over half an hour to make your way out of the scar and track down a supermarket. You feel intensely awkward strolling down the sterile white aisles, almost like you’ve returned to the mothership after years stranded on a distant planet – it’s just been such a long-ass time since you’ve actually been inside one of these places. You buy a few bits and bobs (including too big bottles of water) that would benefit from cold storage and check out, feeling a little discouraged with the knowledge that your hundred smackeroos have dwindled down to $68.50 in just a day or two.

It’s 12:40 when you arrive home. The snow’s thickened a little, and you end up stopping at the door to pat a thin gauze of frost off one another. Instead of being pasty and sticky in the bathtub, Noriko’s being pasty and sticky on the mattress. Kevin’s sitting around looking impotently concerned.

>[X] Cook something up.

>[X] Pass Noriko a bottle of water.

“Did you get stabbed to death by gangsters yet?” Noriko groans out from under the protecting shield of her hands, peering through her fingers at you.

“Hah, nah.” You set aside your shopping and pull out a bottle of water, setting it down beside Noriko. “I haven’t gone after Creeper yet. Here, you should probably be keeping hydrated.”

“Uh, if didn’t go see… that guy… what’ve you been doing? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Kevin regards you curiously as you begin unpacking a few choice items. Now, you’re not one to brag, but you are a truly veteran of the hobo culinary arts, having been running this gig across the US of A since sweet fourteen. You’re about to show these schlubs just how far a few chicken livers, some hot water, and a bit of pepper can go.

Of course, someone else will have to handle the matches.

“Laura helped me work on my powers for a bit. Went pretty well.”

Laura nods and sits down beside you. “It was enjoyable.”

“Yeah.” You confirm, choosing not to divulge that it was mostly just a very long game of tag. “Speaking of, you got any ideas on your powers? Any way you can think of for clocking in some practice with ‘em?”

Kevin’s brow furrows and he seems to sag inward.

“No… I mean, I can’t exactly go around touching people and trying not to turn them into dust.”

Right.

>[X] Wood.

“There’s gotta be some plywood round here.” You note, setting up the stove and cracking open a packet of chicken. “This place is basically one big rubbish tip. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people just unload crap at the edge of the zone and waltz off.”

“Yeah… I guess.”

You glance up, and can’t help but notice that he doesn’t look particularly enthused by the idea – just discussing his powers, it seems, makes him kinda nervous. You feel a tiny, guilty spark of relief. There but for the grace of etc, and all that. You always thought the eyes and the scales were bad, but clearly you actually scored a moderate win (or at least an even) on the genetic lottery.

With some slight embarrassment, you get Laura to start up the stove for you, flinching a little when she strikes the match. That out of the way, you step in and get the chicken boiling. You guys pass the next hour just milling around, eating, and discussing little stuff. Noriko occasionally downs a swig of water before going back to sweating off the Jack aftershock.

It’s 13:40, those chicken livers have filled you up, and you’re recovering from the morning’s exploits.

>[X] Strategy talk

You sit back and decide to let your lunch (and probably dinner too) digest for a while. No point in rushing in. You’re not procrastinating, you’re just being cautious.

You recall Laura’s project and clear your throat.

“Hey, Laura, mind if I take a look at that map thing?”

She glances at you and wordlessly unfurls the large sheet from her pocket, shuffling a little closer and flattening it out against the floor. On the sofa, Kevin teeters in curiously, though his expression quickly changes to one of total noncomprehension. You can’t say you blame him. The map is riddled by little red markings, lines converging and separating at – as far as you can tell – nonsensical incidences. Luckily, Laura seems to realize that you’re not Jason Bourne, and points to a large red marking further upstate.

“This is the facility’s primary centre of operation within the city. Officially, it is a research centre owned by a medical subsidiary.” She then points to three other marks at different points. “My information on these points is outdated, but they were offices owned by the facility. Two are located within public buildings, whereas the last operates under the guise of a private school.”

Huh. Kevin whistles, and you think that about sums up your opinion.

>[X] “What are these little X’s?” >[X] “What are these big shaded in circles?”

“So, uh, what are these, what are these big shaded circles?” You reach down to trace your finger along the perimeter of one such symbol, noting that they appear to darken concentrically.

“Threat zones. Based on the positions of the facility’s offices, these are the areas most likely to dangerous.”

Huh.

“And what about the X’s?” You allow yourself a bit of a chuckle. “I’m guessing not buried treasure?”

“Previous encounters.”

Oh. Right, yeah, makes sense. There’s one over the BK where you met Laura, and one that you presume to be marked upon your confrontation with Kimura at the church. There’s another across the river.

>[X] Previous question. >[X] Creeper time.

You point to the tiny X that you can’t pin an event on.

“What happened here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She nods.

“That was when I first entered the city. I…” She stops, and lets out a tiny, unobtrusive sigh. “I entered a government building to locate public records on someone I know. It was a foolish thing to do. I was caught on camera and a group of agents tracked me to that point. They’ve only taken this long to find me again because they assumed I’d move on immediately.”

“I see.” You don’t push that any further. “What about the little circles?”

“Police stations.”

Huh, okay. Useful.

Glancing at the time, you decide that that’s enough geography talk. You can get around to comprehending the whole scope of that particular mess when this first mess is off your hands. And that means seeing the Creeper.

“Welp… I think it’s about time. Take care of Noriko, yeah?”

You stand, and Laura perks up alongside you, grabbing her jacket.

>[X] Go it alone.

You raise your hand, gesturing for her to stop.

“Actually, Laura, I’d rather go alone.”

This is your problem. Well, actually, it’s not – but Creeper is. He’s been your problem for years.

She stares for a moment, as if you’ve said something in gibberish, and then opens her mouth.

“Have I done something wrong? Do you doubt that I can be effective in”–

“No, no, nah.” You smile haggardly. What the hell man? “I just don’t want you involved. You’ve already got one psychopath looking for you. ‘Sides, I reckon Noriko might be a two-man job once the second wave of vomiting hits.”

“Lovely.” Notes Kevin. “You sure you don’t need any help?”

“I’m good.” You confirm, and hurry your way out before anyone else can object.

You’re good.

You make it outside before you realize that you don’t have an actual destination. You know a place that Creeper used to frequent – this rickety old crack-den full of bad stains and worse people – but you’ve been out of touch for a while now. You’re not even sure the place still exists.

>[X] Put the world out amongst the homeless that you’re looking for him. Maybe he’ll just appear. Behind you.

Roll a D20.

>DC13 >+1 bonus for Veteran Hobo status

Rolled 19 + 1

The old den might not be such a great idea, what with your pockets stuffed full of jack. And you know who you trust more than Creeper’s unholy circle of pushers, pimps and dealers? Basically the entire universe.

You head out into the deepening snow, recalling from memory the local shelters, soup-lines, and other such capitols of jolly hobo activity. It takes hours just finding them all, let alone getting the message out. You’d usually expect to have to grease some palms, but Creeper business is business that everyone generally wants concluded as fast as possible. You hit the guys tossing papers first, then you make your way to one of the larger handouts, making sure the word spreads. You drop in on the shelters you can recall, braving the sickly sweet well-meaning of the volunteers and evangelists, and make a brief circles around the favoured beggars’ spots.

By five-thirty, you’re taking a well-deserved break in the park that lead you to Noriko. The crustwaves are buzzing with activity, and you’re pretty damn glad you took a few hours to rest up in the middle of the day – you pretty much forgot how tiresome hobo-to-hobo communications can be. You briefly wonder if Laura even bothered to head into work today. She should be there now, if she has.

“Hey, boyo.”

You stiffen up, suddenly noticing the intermittent, vaporous heat of his breath against your neck.

Oh, how predictably unpredictable.

>THREAD 08: END

Thread 09

You are John James Green, mutant vagrant, and you just jumped a little ways out of your skin.

Creeper’s breath leaves a damp, hot trail along your neck, your skin prickling at the sudden warmth. He leaves off, grinning imperceptibly – you know, you fucking know he’s grinning, you just can’t see it – and sidles round, brushing a thin gauze of frost from the bench before sitting down beside you.

Your eyes can’t help but dart briefly over the tired, frost-crystal trees and glistening paths, trying to latch on to some other human presence. There’s at least three people in your stretch of the park. Too many for him to do something rash in front of, right? Right?

“Long ears, funky eyes, scaly bits…” Creeper shifts closer – close enough that you can feel the warmth coursing through his blood. You’re suddenly aware of your eyes drifting in their sockets, veering away from his face. “…and invisibility. You ever considered how lucky you and I are, boyo? That we can just vanish? Get away from all these…”

He motions dismissively toward one of the other scattered park-goers – a jogger ploughing adamantly through the Christmastime snow. A fleck of disgust hangs like venom on the tip of his tongue.

“…people?”

>Current Funds: $68.50 >$28 (Laura) >$26 (Kevin)

>[X] I'd rather not. >[X] Write in.

“You never know.” You respond, a hint of bitterness edging into your tone. “Sometimes, your blesses can become curses when you least expect it.”

He doesn’t shift. He doesn’t even make any indication that he’s listening – not that you’d even know what he was thinking, anyhow, what with his face being visually off-limits. There’s just a sense of silent, unwanted scrutiny that Creeper carries around with him wherever he goes. But you’re not gonna just go agreeing with this loathsome scumbag for the sake of it.

“And, to be honest, I’d rather not be a homeless pariah.”

He titters way too loud, like dice clacking over a board. “If you’d stuck with me, we might’ve done a thing or two about that.”

Liar. Probably. You wish you could see his face.

“Why did you want to see me, Johnny?”

>[X] Sarcasm. >[X] Jack out of the box.

“I miss your dulcet tones and classy deportment.”

Why are you being so mouthy, you wonder? This guy is terrifying. But, you guess, you’re pretty much insignificant to him. He’s part of the exceptionally extended Fisk family now, standing in the considerable (both figuratively and physically) shadow of the Kingpin. You’re a dirty homeless clown to him and it doesn’t matter what you think or say.

Either way, he just chortles a bit. And snakes his arm over your shoulder, which honestly wasn’t the response you were hoping for at all. Time to get down to business. Last time Creeper got touchy it resulted in the three or four most uncomfortable minutes of your life so far.

You reach into your coat and withdraw the two little bags of pills, setting them down on the wood between you.

“I believe this is yours.”

There is silence for a moment, and then he shifts ever closer, and pats your shoulder in manner that is far too familiar for your liking.

“Oh, Johnny. Johnny boyo, you sure are golden.” Yeah, okay. That’s nice, you guess. “Where’d you find it, Johnny?”

Roll me some bluff. >DC17 >-1 modifier for it not being what you've planned Rolled 15 + 1

>FAIL

You lie. Goddammit, you practiced this shit in your head and this is not how it was supposed to go, but Creeper wasn't there when you made the decision to strike a deal. And now he is.

“Well, uh, there was this explosion not too far from there, you know? A blue light and shit? I was in the area, so I took a closer loo”–

You find an interrupting finger suddenly on your lips. You freeze – your whole body locks up for a second, like it’d give anything to turn to stone right now, and suddenly there’s adrenaline pumping, pumping, pumping, running wild through your veins and your brain and everywhere. Shit, shit. Shit.

His hand trails its way down your coat, and your eyes follow it. Eventually it comes to rest on your thigh, and you notice that while you were watching he must’ve picked up the Jack, ‘cause it’s gone.

“Johnny, I really do like you.” He’s closer now. He’s breath is pooling under your hood. “So I’m going to tell you right now that if you’re about to lie to me, and I figure that shit out, two very large men are going to drag you into a van. They’ll take you to somebody’s basement and strap a bunch of electrodes up in some very unpleasant places and that will be that. Do you understand me?”

You nod. Yessir.

>[X] Truth >[X] Write in

“Look, I’m trying to tell you that I found your thieves.”

He knows. He knows you tried to bullshit him. You can just fucking feel it. But he’s not doing anything yet, just hanging over you like a crow over a shiny bauble.

“A-anyway, I told them exactly who they’ve crossed, and as you might expect, they pretty much shat their pants.”

“And? Where are they now?”

“Yeah…” You draw in a gulp of cold air. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m not here to hand them over to you. I’m here because they want to make it up to you.”

His posture changes. You’re not sure, but you think he might actually be surprised. Little Johnny Green, standing up for someone else. You don’t blame him.

“Oh? And what are you, then? Their lawyer? You’re here to argue their case?” He practically hisses into your hood, leaning in closer, closer. “This isn’t a courtroom, boyo. They’ve stolen what’s mine and I want it back. And if what you’ve given me is all that’s left, then I want something more from them.”

>[X] “I’ll do a job for you. One last job.”

You know what he wants. He wants blood or he wants money, and you can’t afford to spare much of either. What else do you have other than that? You have a crummy second-hand stove and some lumps of chicken. You have an alright coat. You used to have some hi-tech dart gun thingy but you lost that shit on account of some very rash (hindsight, 20/20) decisions.

“I’ll do a job for you. One last job.”

He’s stiller than usual for a moment, but his breath sharpens. Was he waiting for this? Hoping for it? Or did it just take him off guard?

“You’d do that for me, Johnny? You’d do that for little ole Creeper?” His hand moves from your shoulder to your collarbone. “I’m touched.”

Them. You’d do it for THEM. But you don’t give the thought voice, and instead keep business going smooth.

“You have anything in mind?”

“Oh, of course.” Creeper chuckles greasily. “I’ve always got something lying around for a boy with your kind of talent. Firstly, though, I’m thinking two.”

“Two?”

“Two jobs, not one.”

“Wait, what, no”–

“Two souls on the line, boyo. Understand, I own those kids.” Urgh, seriously? You forgot just how ridiculously loathsome this guy could get. “When they stole from me they became mine. And you are buying them from me. Two human souls.”

You stew in a pit of ineffectual rage for a moment, but you have to give him a response eventually, and you might as well investigate the idea. Not like you have many other options.

“What would you want me to do?”

“Well,” for the first time in minutes, Creeper lays off a little, lounging back over the bench, drinking in a swig of cold NY atmosphere. “I can’t say I have two jobs lined up for you right this moment, but I do have one issue your talents could provide some real help with. It’s just a teeny little bit of larceny. There’s an

item I want – well, technically, an item Fisk wants. I’ve known its whereabouts for a while but I haven’t had the means to get my hands on it.”

>[X] What? >[X] Who? >[X] Write in.

“You want me to steal something that Wilson Fisk can’t get?” Your tone is probably far too derogatory for his liking, but you don’t care. You think you might have been struck dumb by the sheer absurdity of this shit. “You want a hobo to steal something that the motherfucking Kingpin of Crime cannot get his huge- ass hands on?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?” answers Creeper, with the condescending tone of a schoolteacher. “There are very few things in the world that Mr. Fisk cannot acquire. This isn’t one of them. But I don’t want him to acquire it. I want ME to acquire it and I want to be the one to present it to him.”

So Fisk doesn’t know? Fisk and his exhaustive net of ninjas and mobsters and everything in-between? You guess Creeper does kind of have the perfect power for overhearing crap that anyone else would never get close enough to.

“What is it?”

“Psht, just some – just some Egyptian thing. It’s a tablet. You didn’t hear it from me, but Mr. Fisk is a surprisingly suspicious guy. He loves this hokey crap.”

“Okay.” Not what you were expecting. “And who has it?”

“Guy called Mister Negative. Triad affiliate, one of the few guys in the city that doesn’t pay up to Mr. Fisk. He keeps it in one of his properties, under heavy lock & key. I’d go in myself, but my powers only account for the human element, y’know?” >[X] “Mr. Negative sounds like a supervillain name. Are you sending me after a supervillain?” >[X] “Where?” >[X] “When?”

“Mr. Negative sounds like a supervillain name. Are you sending me after a supervillain?”

You really don’t like the odds there.

“Psht.” Creeper chortles. “I’m a supervillain. You were a supervillain, technically, back in the day. Supervillains are overrated. It’s not like he’s Doctor Doom, he’s just some shmuck that fell over backwards into superpowers and thinks that makes him a big man. Shit, you haven’t even heard of him, have you?”

That’s not very comforting, but it is true. Uncomfortably true in some places.

“Where is this place?”

“Upstate. Don’t worry, the boys’ll drive you up there. They'll get you in and out.”

“And… when do you want it?”

“Whenever you’re ready.” He half-laughs. “Though, bear in mind, if you’re not ready by tomorrow night I’ll be very disappointed a liable to replace your eyes with your balls.”

>[X] “I can do it tomorrow night.” >[X] Write in.

“Tomorrow night, then.”

You need time to prepare yourself for this. You’re potentially facing off with a supervillain – a lame supervillain called Mister Negative (the fuck man, really?), but a supervillain nonetheless. God, you hope this isn’t going to be the next trend in your life. Supervillains.

“Seven ‘o’clock sharp, boyo. And I should come pick you up from…?”

“Here.” Yeah, no, he’s not getting your address. “What, uh, powers does this Negative Nancy guy have?”

He shrugs.

“Eh, stuff, y’know. I think he’s strong. Really, though, he shouldn’t even be there. He’s got better things to do than sit around watching his stash, boyo. Men like him and I have responsibilities. Boxes to tick. Obligations.”

Yes, of course, how silly of you. They have responsibilities. Like threatening to torture hobos to death. Gotta tick dem boxes.

>[X] Leave.

“Well, I’ve got stuff to do, so, y’know…” You stand up, shaking off Creeper’s invasive hand and wrapping your coat in tight.

“Are you going to vanish now, Johnny?”

“Yep.”

So you do. You slip away into the nether of invisibility, that cold, clear sense of separation slipping over you and clothing you in comforting nothingness. You look back, and Creeper is nowhere to be seen. Figures.

You hit the path as soon as possible, the intent on leaving a distinct lack of discernible footprints, and make your way out of the park, into the concrete netting of NY. You loop and dawdle a bit, knitting a haphazard, unpredictable path through the streets and alleys and even a few roofs, before coming upon a main road and stopping to consider where life is taking you.

>Hunger Level: 3

>[X] Stuff for Kevin. >[X] You’ve been considering a circuit breaker for you and Noriko.

You check yourself quickly, a sudden image of Creeper chortling smugly while his unnoticeable self stows some kind of bug on you. You don’t find anything, but you’re glad you tried. The thought might have given you a very brief heart attack had it occurred to you back at the scar.

The day is yet to die. Might as well do something to cheer you up after that loathsome encounter with Creeper. And does anything cheer you up more than rooting through trash for little gems of capriciously discarded utility? Yes. Yes, many things cheer you up more than that, but seeing as you promised Kevin you’d find some crap for him to work with and Noriko really needs something to practice on, it’s the option with the best cheer-to-pragmatism ratio.

Jeez, you feel like a single parent. You hope you and your sister were never this much of a handful.

You know the general area, and it doesn’t take you long to find Ericson’s (that’s Ericson the cranky junkyard general, not Ericson the phone mogul. You don’t know that second guy). It’s the largest junkyard you know to exist in this part of the city, and a fenced-off nightmare of protruding metal spires and ruined electronics. The sun is dipping and the cold is starting to set in, but you can get in and out quick enough.

Roll me some Agility.

>DC12 >+1 agility bonus Rolled 19 + 1

>[X] Fence. >[X] Invisible.

You know what? You spent all morning playing super tag over the rooftops with some kind of mutant secret agent girl. You think you can handle a fence.

Fading out just to be on the careful side of things, you slip from visibility and make a short run up, digging your boots into the wire rungs of the fence and pushing off. You scale it ridiculously easily, practically flying over the top and coming down light on the other side. God, you are one slick motherfucker sometimes. Mister Negative isn’t going to know what didn’t hit him and actually went right past him and took all his stuff (hopefully because he’s not even in the city and you’re not going to be within a hundred yards of the guy).

You barely made any noise, but you freeze up for a second anyway, letting a few seconds tick by before you’re certain that nobody’s coming to check for looters and/or annoying troublemaking kids. They pass uneventfully and you straighten up, strolling on into the mesh of piled-up wreckage.

Throw me a Salvage roll, guys. >DC12 Rolled 14

>[X] Look for the circuit breaker first. >[X] Invisible.

You decide to stay off visual radar for now.

There’s no real rhyme or reason to the piles of scrap sloping over the landscape, so you just dig in, making your way up one of the nearby loads and turning over whatever you can. The snow and the cold don’t make it a simple endeavour, but you’ve never let them beat you before, and you’re not gonna let them beat you now.

You’re trudging your way between an assortment of totalled cars and what appears to be a radiator heap when something between all the folds of faded metal catches your eye. You jog up to the assorted auto- wrecks and peer inside one of the windows. Sure enough, someone’s carelessly dumped a load of electronics in there, including – you think – a circuit board.

Perfect.

You’re getting a slight pressure at the back of your head, like you used to do when you spent to long faded out, but it’s not too bad yet.

Perception check, guys. >DC15 >+3 modifier Rolled 15 + 3

>Success

>[X] Leave.

Your jolly elf ears twitch, and you pick out the steady patter-patter of footsteps not far behind you. You perk up, focusing your senses, and you catch a whiff of warm, fresh saliva – and fur, and raw meat. That’d be the pair of bloodhounds Ericson keeps close. He must be checking out a suspicious noise or something.

Snatching up the circuit board, you scurry off, making your way around the offending noises and finding your way to the front gate. As expected, Ericson’s not there, nor can you see him through the windows of his trailer. You make a speedy escape and disappear into the city.

>[X] Home >[X] Search >[X] Invisible

You head home.

Maybe you’re letting paranoia get the better of you, but you’re not so sure that heading back in plain sight is such a great idea. You still can’t get Creeper’s little attempt to coax out your current location (if that is what it was) from your mind. You hold your cloak tight and try to stay invisible as long as possible.

By the time you reach the outlying ruins, its 19:45, and your head is pounding. That steady little prod at the back of your brain has grown into a battering ram. You try to keep it up a little longer but you just can’t, and you pop back into visibility as you enter the scar. Through the buzzing in your head you vaguely recall that you were meant to look for something for Kevin and veer off in… some direction, whatever, there’s gotta be stuff all over the place.

>Hunger Level: 5

Roll a D20 for Salvage again. >DC15 >-3 modifier for pushing your powers too far Rolled 20 - 3

>Too Much Success

It dawns on you soon enough that you’ve no idea where you’re going, but it doesn’t really matter. You feel like the cold is slipping in under your hood and setting down roots in your brain. Things blur back and forth in the edges of your vision, slipping softly on by, vague, contextless.

You find yourself in front of the busted-up furniture castle you met Kevin in. Perfect. Chair legs and shit. You wipe a fleck of something that smells like copper from under your eye but that’s not important ‘cause you gotta find this stuff chair legs and stuff you gotta get up in the morning there’s work and more work later. Your head buzzes. Buzz, buzz, goddamn, that’s fucking annoying.

It’s not hard to find something made of wood in a furniture store. Pretty soon you’ve got more crap than you can carry. In fact, you’ve got so much that you keep dropping it. And having to go back. And dropping it again. And going back…

Your head spits and crackles, like fire, like lightning. Fire, burning, roasting, spreading. Why’d you have to hold the up banana automobile lilac so long?

You sit down. You’ve got the stuff for Kevin, mommy. You did great. Your life is great.

Your head buzzes. She tucks you in.

You sleep.

Buzzzzzzz.

>THREAD 09: END

Thread 10

You are John James Green.

You’re twelve years old. It’s a bright, clear morning. Summer nestles in close over the horizon, stirring the air into undulating blankets of flowing, shimmering strangeness. Sometimes when you look hard the shapes it makes are like streamers, or snakes, or coursing, grasping tongues of translucent fire. Beneath the ethereal flux, Lake Michigan stretches out, yawning in blues and greens, cool and shifting but strangely solid to you.

Everything shifts. Everything changes. The sky paints such shapes. The dune beneath your back is at once soft and coarse, pooling around you, sand seeping and minute layers lifting as the breeze slowly – ever so slowly, ever so imperceptibly – moves the land further, further back. The lake is like wall set against the grinding bones of the Earth, a mirror in which the sky is only still, and the land is only a ghost.

You’ll be back at school tomorrow, but now you’re here. It’s just you and the dunes. Just you and the roaring waves.

The roar carries your name to you.

>[X] Follow

Man, what does she want?

You get up and stomp back inland, your moment of oneness with the universe thoroughly ruined.

“John!” The voice repeats it, like a mantra. “John get your behind back here!”

“I’m coming!” You shout back indignantly, trudging up the dunes.

Mom’s SUV materializes as you crest one of the rolls of sand, lodged awkwardly into a jutting dune. She sits off to the side, in the shade, the broad-rimmed hat over her wiry, awkward shape lending the appearance of a flower wilting under the sun. She’s not the one calling to you, though.

“Finally!” Joyce waves you over. She’s four years older than you. She’s so much taller than you, too. Her skin is tanned from all the running she does, and her eyes are the same bright, oceanic blue as yours. She gets her hair from your dad, though. “Come on, I put this thing way too far in. I can’t get it out the sand. Gonna need a little help.”

She grips the front of the vehicle and grins.

“You doofus, you know you don’t need my help.”

Still, you smile anyway as you make your way around the mired vehicle.

“Alala. Such pointed words.” She snickers and braces herself deep in the sand, breathing in and out quickly, like a weightlifter getting ready to make the champion ship heave. You affix your hands to the back of the car and hold on.

Her head cranes out to the side, grinning at you. “You ready, buddy?”

“Yeah.”

She gunts, and lifts… and lifts the entire SUV, you with it, straight out of the sand. You dangle by your arms and laugh as she carries it forward with slow, careful steps, very slightly swinging it from side to side. It’s like the ebb and flow of the tide, but in the air. Eventually, she sets it down again, and you lift your legs so as to make sure than nothing gets caught.

You sister can be pretty cool sometimes.

>[X] Run back to the beach with your sister.

“Come on.” Joyce waltzes around the car, blowing a gust of imaginary smoke from her bicipital ‘guns’. “Race you to the water.”

“That’s not even slightly fair.” You state.

But you bolt off anyway, hoping to get a head start. It doesn’t last, and she soon catches up, running beside you in huge, exaggerated bounds. The wind rushes over and under and through you, your footfalls blasting you with little gusts of sand. The world bellows so hard in your ears. You bellow back, because clearly that will make you faster.

She keeps pace with you till you reach the final dune, and then clears most of the beach in one gigantic, ridiculous leap.

Well you certainly weren’t expecting that.

You trail after her.

“Nice try, kid. But not nice enough.”

>[X] “Yes this outcome was such a surprise.” >[X] BRAAAAT.

“Yes, this outcome was such a surprise.” You mumble. Stupid awesome superpowers.

“Alala, is a hint of that bitterness I detect?” She furrows her brow and cocks back her neck in faux- aloofness, grinning broadly. Sometimes you think that grin is in real danger of splitting open her face. “I think it is.”

“No it’s not!” You counter. “It doesn’t even matter ‘cause one day I’ll have my OWN powers! AND I’ll be a million times faster an’ stronger than you! An’ I’ll shoot lasers! And fly!”

“Oh, really?” Her grin morphs into a sly smile and she leans down. “Would that be cool? Flying? Wouldn’t you rather have something like…” she waves her arms as if to catch ideas as they rush by on the wind “…intangibility? Or invisibility?”

“Nope.” You reply. “Flying is the best. You could go anywhere.”

“Yeah”– She grabs you by the waist –“I see your point. Welp, you’ve convinced me, kiddo.”

“Hey hey what are you”–

“Get ready to fly!”

You remember feeling like you’d never come down. The water seemed so far away. You flew, and flew, and flew… hurtling into the beyond. The blue stretched out above and below and out into infinity.

But you did come down, eventually.

You’re John James Green.

You’re thirteen.

Your sister is holding your hand. The blue has changed. It’s sick and sterile now, and enclosing. You smell nothing but freshener and antiseptics. Your sister is not grinning. She’s nodding and nodding and nodding, like it’s some kind of nervous twitch. Barely-visible, glimmering streaks of wetness climb up her cheeks. You realize you’re doing the same thing, the same nodding thing, the same wet-eye thing, and you shake yourself out of it.

You stare at the door beyond. It looms like a great, storm-blue thundercloud. Like a tsunami. Like all the solidity in the world rushing at you.

“Do you understand?” Says the doctor.

No. No, you don’t, the words didn’t mean anything. You were soaked up into the haze of the moment, of the place. But he’s not talking to you; he’s talking to your sister. And she just nods.

>[X] "I don't understand."

“No. I don’t understand.”

They look at each other. God dammit you hate it when people do that. You’re not a child! You’re thirteen.

The doctor leans down a little. To this day, his face remains a chaotic infestation of rot and soiled flesh. This is the face of the underworld. The face of becoming and unbecoming, and beckoning, and fading.

“It’s like a tiny blood clot in your mother’s brain. Around...” he pauses, and makes a tiny circle between his forefinger and thumb “…around this big. Like a small grape. Normally we’d have caught it earlier, but with her pre-existing conditions, the headaches didn’t seem out of the ordinary.”

Your throat is a pit. Your stomach is nothingness, the space behind your eyes is nothingness.

“We can attempt to…” His voice fades out into the sterile beyondness of the hospital. You feel the universe imploding.

>[X] “What’s going to happen to her?”

“What’s going to happen to her?” You interrupt him. Actually, did you? You can’t remember.

Time begins to break here.

“Well, we can attempt surgery, but at this stage…” There is a hole in space between his breaths here. Empty, vast, inevitable. It opens wide, teeth of grinding nothingness ripping back the curtains of everything. The orderlies that shuffle by are disintegrating, churning meat, flittering away into the timeless black. There’s just you and your sister and the huge, blue door, standing sentinel at the edge of Creation. “…well, either way, the choice is hers.”

You don’t remember when exactly he left. But he did, his grey, paralytic maw receding, creeping back into the sterile dark. Your sister, the last chunk of reality, squeezes your hand.

You reach for the doorknob. It’s hot.

It burns.

>[X] Turn it anyway.

You grasp the doorknob. It sears your flesh, scattering burns, scales, somethings, across your hand. You turn it.

You feel the fire racing toward you. It circles, like a firebird, like a phoenix, like a comet-vulture waiting in the slips and cracks of the atmosphere. Waiting, watching. You and your sister step tentatively in. She’s squeezing your hand so tight. Her grip isn’t strong, though – it flutters, shaking, none of the Herculean might you’re used to in it. All the strength was cried out of her in the waiting room.

Yes, you remember that very well.

Your mother lies against the dank nothingness like a queen laid to rest. The machines assemble around her like courtiers vying for recognition, the tubes and wires like holy flowers draped across her flesh. Like something from a movie, like something undead, she raises her head – ever so slowly – to look at you. She smiles and waves weakly.

Your burnt hand is in hers. You’re sitting beside her. Her finger slowly circles the back of your hand, hypnotic and comforting. You’re just glad to see her talking to your sister.

She turns to you.

“You’ll be alright, James. You’re not just anyone.”

Not just anyone. Not just any homeless loser. Not just any tramp. Not just -

You look at her.

She is a dark, spitting cinder writhing in a net of flame.

>[X] Grab your sister. >[X] Written in stuff.

The urge to scream splits your skull.

You grab your sister. Her face is nothing. No expression. She’s still talking to your mother, to your cinder, your firestorm.

“Sis, we have to go now!” The blaze licks at your back. Sweat materializes across you, smoke belching up into your lungs. “Sis! Sis! Joyce!”

You wrap your arms around her. And you feel hers around yours. You feel her lift you up, her form enclosing around you protectively.

You’re John James Green. You’re fourteen.

Your sister runs along the grass, along the dunes, along the sand. You feel the world lurch under you with every bound. The heat of the house still clings to you, its glow eclipsing the black of the night, like a great, red halo. She breaths heavily, raggedly. You wince. Your shoulder hurts so much. You can’t stop crying, it hurts to bad. Why did they do that? Why would you do tha–

A sound like a giant rattling its teeth scatters over the beach. Your sister ducks and tumbles down the closest dune, her arms tightening around you, her grasping you close.

She pulls herself up. She begins to pull herself up. Her breath is a rasping, clattering thunderstorm. Her blood soaks your shirt, your hair, your face.

In the distance the fire roars.

>[X] “Get up.” >[X] Drag her up.

“Get up, get up, get up get up…”

You cling to her like she is all there is. You realize that she’s crying too – she’s crying harder than you are, she’s crying into your shoulder, her tears and her blood mingling in your shirt. It’s not pain. Its seven- years-old and getting kicked off the basketball team. It’s shame. It’s getting the low scores. It’s lying and being found out about it. It’s letting someone down.

“I’m sorry.” You never understood this. She tried her best.

“It’s okay.” You rasp out. Smoke in your lungs, choking, black. “It’s…”

You loop your arms under hers and pull her. You drag her with you. You drag the both of you toward the water, toward the lake, the first, crystalline blue that was perfect and infinite. You don’t know why, but everything will be better if you make it to the water. The lake was the only thing that didn’t change. The still, clear drop stranded in the rush of time.

Your stomach drops as you hear the vans roll to a stop behind you. Again. Again, again, again. You hear the boots. The clicks. You feel the strength drain from your arms as loom over you, shadows in the raiment of priests, flicker-men, ogre-men with stone faces.

“I’m sorry…”

>[X] “You tried you best. I just slowed you down.” >[X] “It’s not going to end like this. Come on! Get up!”

“You tried your best.” Time breaks again here. You don’t know if you say this or think this. Either way, it seeps out of you, through you, into the sodden mess that is the two Green siblings. It is the ultimate truth. “I just slowed you down.”

Slow, useless James John Green. No miraculous superpowers until after he needed them. Late to every party, even the party and the end of the world.

One of them grabs her hair. They try to pull you apart but you hold on – you hold on as tight as you can. You scream at them. You scream all the worst shit you know. You scream everything awful. And then you, knowing your impotence and your weakness and how little you voice means against the world, you turn to your sister.

“It’s not going to end like this.” It’s not just a hope it’s a spark and a reality and a small god and a fact. It’s true. It doesn’t end like this. “It’s not – it’s not ending like this! Come on! Get up!”

She looks at you, her face full of shame and fear and failure. Her eyes are black.

And her tears are white. White, spreading, engulfing, shifting like the dunes. Like little rivers of milk. It spills out over her, bursting from her – you don’t know, from her pores? From everywhere, from seemingly nothing. It clothes her in in pure, unspoiled white. Like porcelain.

Someone fires. Someone. The bullets tap-dance over her shell and arc out into the night. She grabs him by the neck and, and – she bursts is head open.

Like a balloon.

Like a grape.

Like an aneurysm.

She screams silently. Her mouth works the rage and the hate but nothing comes out. Her hands are around the closest one and suddenly he is nothing, just spillage, splitting open and spraying stuff you didn’t know humans had, stuff you never considered – all his intestinal juices and phlegm and stomach paddings and shit. The charges through them – literally, she literally charges through them, tearing them apart – and burrows her arms into one of the vans, hurling it over her head. It spins like space junk against the red-black night, crashing down as a crumpled mess.

There are more at the top of the dunes. There’s so many of them. They scream and shout and – and they say things that angels should be saying. She watches them draw that long, dark cylinder. You see her face, frozen in that last expression of raw failure. She strides towards you and picks you up.

You think she’s going to run, but she doesn’t.

She sways. She heaves. You realize what’s happening and you scream for her to stop but it’s too late.

She throws you further than she’s ever thrown you before.

In the air, just for a moment, you glimpse her, and you see the rocket cut its scar-white trail across the beach, just before her fist cuts its flight short. And there is a thunder like you’ve never known.

Roll a D20. >DC15

Rolled 11

>11 >not quite enough

You scream and grasp for them, for these people. You’re not fourteen anymore. You will fuck these people up. If you reach hard enough, hate hard enough, scream loud enough –

You get them. You get your hands around their throat, you come out of the blackness and grab them and you pour yourself into them. You squeeze all the juice in your body into a single pulse of acidic hate.

They collapse against you. Their flesh is hot, prickling with the aftereffects of voltage. They’re light.

The cold seeps into you. Then the light blasts into your eyes and you become aware of the headache picking at the back of your brain. Then the blanket. Then the apartment, and the shocked figures of Noriko & Kevin watching from several feet away. And Laura, her neck bubbling with dark, greasy heat.

She coughs, sputtering through a cooked throat, and rolls herself off of you.

Oh. Oh…

“Oh…” Reality sinks in. “Oh, oh shit!”

You hurl yourself out from under the blanket and move to grab her shoulders. You’re not exactly sure why – you don’t know what to do here, or what the proper etiquette is for accidentally electrifying someone so hard that you actually peel some flesh off their bones. Laura’s hand jolts out, pressing against your chest, keeping you back for a moment, before she gradually lowers it.

“I am… I’m so fucking sorry. I wasn’t here, exactly.”

“Hkk. Hakk. Khhk.” She makes a few experimental, meaty sounds with her throat, wheezing occasionally. Must be the numbness of electrification interfering with breathing. A chill races down your spine and you wonder if that could actually kill her, but you notice, to all the relief you are possibly capable of, that she’s already healing.

The other two stare at you. They appear to have been playing cards. Huh. So that’s what they do all day. Kevin clears his throat.

“Dude. What the hell was that?”

This will require a roll based on your trust of these dudes. >DC16 >[X] Full truth >17 >bueno excellente

Well, some of this had to come out sooner or later. They’ve confided a great deal in you, and they’ve trusted you – perhaps excessively. For all they know Creeper could be about to barge through the door and cut everyone’s dicks off, then shake your hand and give you a hearty (greasy) pat on the back.

You glance at the door. Nope, nothing. Cool. No jinx.

Laura stays tense, as if she could spring away at any time. She stares at you in expectant silence.

“Right then…” Once upon a time, JJ Green was an all-American boy on an all-American farm out in Michigan. The dragons attacked but his ogre sister beat them up and he decided to go travelling for a while the end. Urgh. “Well, as the accent may suggest, I’m not from NY…”

It takes a while. You halt at bits and, where you can, you gloss over certain stuff. But eventually you’re done, and an immense weight seeps from your chest.

“Whoa.” Is the first response, courtesy of Noriko. She’s looking a lot better, you note.

Laura is looking at her feet, seemingly thinking about something.

>Your excellent roll has greatly mitigated a potentially catastrophic loss of Relationship! >[X] “How’d I get here anyway? Pretty sure I passed out outside.” >[X] Check the time.

“How’d I get here anyway? Pretty sure I passed out outside.”

Laura looks up from her feet and nods.

“Yes, you were in the corridor downstairs when I returned.”

“Oh, hah, right.” Ack. An extra little stab of guilt pangs at you. “I’m… really sorry, Laura. About that… thing.”

She shakes her head.

“No, I may have done something similar, had the roles been reversed.” She looks away for a moment, as if contemplating something, and then adds: “You can make it up to me.”

You chuckle. Well, alright. Still, something’s nagging at… at… you…

“Hey… you sure I was in the corridor when you found me?”

She nods.

“Oh. Okay.” Huh. You… you could’ve sworn you crashed all over that furniture store. You remember being on your feet, then on your knees, then on your back, then nothing. Maybe you’re just kinda muddled up?

The thought evaporates when you check the time. 5:45.

You have roughly half an hour to get to the Bugle. Shit.

>[X] RUN. LIKE THE WIND.

>[X] Write in.

Aw, shit.

Gotta be the cartoon hedgehog. Gotta – gotta be Saturday morning cartoon speed, possibly Road Runner fast. Or faster. Who is faster than Road Runner?

You bolt to your feet and, in a moment of confounded urgency, try to grab around for all the shit that’s pretty much on you. Oh.

“Uh, look, guys, I gotta go. Uh…” You pad down your jeans, withdrawing all but $15 and placing it on the floor beside Laura. “I worked stuff out with Creeper, kind of, and yeah, I’ve been thinking that it’s safer to keep most of our cash here. Anyway… gottago.”

You run like the wind.

>Hunger Level: 5

Urgh, you run like a gaseous, smoggy wind. Your tummy huuuurts.

Luckily, you just about miss most of the morning rush and find yourself at those glorious Bugle gates just shy of 6:30. You’re a little later than you should be, but you’ve got plenty of time to find your spot. You rush in. Vanessa’s back and she quickly points you on your way to the usual side-corridor nearby the presses.

As you open the door you very nearly smack straight into a dude, but – with poise you honestly can’t help but be a little dumbstruck by – a he twists around you, bending under your arm. With a stack of files clasped against his chest. He shoots you an almost frightened, kinda weirdly apologetic look, kinda a deer + headlights thing, and – and hey, it’s Parker.

And he has a bruise the size of Kansas all over his left eye.

>[X] “Whoa.” >[X] “Hey, man, what happened to your face?”

“Whoa, Parker, that was slick movement there.”

For some reason, he doesn’t seem to think so himself, and just kinda chuckles nervously, waving it off.

“Nah, just lucky, I guess.”

“Well, I want some of your luck, then.”

“Hah, uh…” He scratches the back of his neck and smiles nervously. “Yeah, that’s me. Mr… lucky.”

In the awkward silence that follows you clear your throat and shift a little, trying to keep your eyes off the incredibly, ridiculously distracting bruise cluttering up one side of his face.

“Uh, you alright, by the way?” He shoots you a puzzled look. “Your face, man. What happened there?”

“Oh! Oh, right, yeah…” Man, this kid can invent new types of awkward and then some. “It’s not so bad, really. I just… fell. Down some stairs.”

Fell down some stairs. Right.

>[X] "Not to pry but etc" >[X] Write in.

Again, sorry bout that huge wait. I’ll have to be off relatively soon but I at least want to get you guys to an okay stopping point.

You know what? You can’t. You just can’t. Stairs, really? The Stairs Attacks: Part XXVIII: The Stairs Attack Again?

“Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but that's got to be one of the most generic lies ever.”

Now, you are not a cruel man. But hoooo look at him squirm. It is kind of strangely rewarding, in an entirely perverse and wrong fashion. You sigh, and just shoot what’s on your brain – and, likely, the brain of anyone to ever be within a square mile of than enormous shiner – into the air.

“I don’t mean to pry or whatever, if anyone’s, I dunno, giving you shit, you should probably tell someone.”

He immediately puts his hands in front of him, almost defensively.

“Hah, no, I mean… it’s nothing like that. It really was just an accident.”

“Still involving stairs?”

“…Yes?”

>[X] “You’re absolutely sure? You’re in school right? You have no idea how utterly and completely a hobo can scare a bunch of dumb bullies.” >[X] Write in.

“You’re absolutely sure? You’re in school right? You have no idea how utterly and completely a hobo can scare a bunch of dumb bullies.”

It’s true. You are a jilted and misunderstood people. On account of you being terrifying and loathsome. He laughs a little nervously and just shakes his nead.

“Nah, it’s not a school thing. I’m fine.”

You narrow your eyes a little. He… is most definitely not telling you something, and he most certainly was not attacked by a staircase (it’d take every stairway in Manhattan to but that monstrous bloat of a bruise on his face). But, then again, he’s not really obligated to tell you anything, and you’re certainly not being entirely straight with the good folk of the Daily Bugle.

“Sure.” You sigh. Ah, acceptance. Compromise. The qualities of a true hobo king. “Look, I get I'm probably the wrong guy to help you here, but I want you to know that you do have help if you want it. Ok man?”

He smiles, this time more openly. “Yeah. Thanks for caring, anyway.”

You part ways – he heads up into the Bugle proper, while you pick up your stack and head out.

You make it to your spot at 7:05, a little later than you’d generally like, but whatever. As usual, you’re at the entrance to an underground station, but as long as you don’t actually set foot on the premises you shouldn’t be having any trouble. You soon lose yourself to the blank drudgery of handing out papers.

>Roll a D20 for speed Rolled 1

>1

This isn’t so bad. It’s kinda relaxing, in a mind-numbingly boring way. Last time it only took you like an hour to get read of your entire stack, and then you were free to go about your merry hobo way, your pockets a full $60 thicker. You start kinda slow, with the morning crowd being kinda thinner than usual, but there’ll be a rush of commuters soon enough.

After six hours of waiting for that second surge you no longer believe in hope, or love, or wonder. You are a machine, a paper-handing, dead-to-the-world machine. Beep boop.

You hand out your last paper and 13:26 and slither off onto the sidewalk to rest your battered soul. Sweet Jesus, Yahweh, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, anyone – right now you’ll pretty much devote your life to the worship of any god that can guarantee the events of today to be ones never, ever repeated.

You sigh heavily. This probably isn’t even going to be the low mark for today.

No, that’s going to come later. At it’s not gonna be pretty.

>Hunger Level: 6 >Incidentally, we haven’t had a Random Event roll in ages! >ROLL A D20 MOTHERFUCKERS FIRST ROLL COUNTS Rolled 4 >THREAD 10: END

Thread 11

You’re John James Green, homeless mutant lizard elf.

You’re sitting at a sidewalk, breathing in the midday bustle of New York and recovering from the boredom-induced shock of handing out papers for six whole hours. The round was so long as so tedious today that you can’t even remember the headline you were shouting just five or six minutes ago (that

said, it was almost certainly something about Spider-Man being a goose-stepping spandexed thiefmonsternazi).

Sixty in the bank (your pocket), you tell yourself. Technically that’s $10 per hour. That’s not bad.

The mumble of the crowd rises behind you as a spurt of day-to-day goers emerge from the nearby station. It’s not snowing yet, but the air is just right for it. It’ll be chucking down by the time you’re off to meet with Creeper.

It’s 13:30. He expects you at the park by 7’o’clock.

Okay. You have some time.

>Hunger Level: 6 >Current Funds: $15 at hand ($68.50 total)

>[X] "Why." >[X] Eat.

Well this is a mess. You feel a pang of sympathy for the girl, but, somewhat shamefully, you’re mostly wondering why this particular mess had to heap itself down into your lap today. Yesterday would’ve been fine. Tomorrow would be fine. Today… is kind of important.

And you know what? You’re eating that pizza. You paid for it.

You hunker down and grab a slice. God, yes, cheese and tomato and stuff. You’re not even sure you know exactly what’s on top but it’s nice.

“Okay, look.” You pause to gulp down some cheese-stuffed crust, and intercept Layla as she reaches for another piece, dragging her intended target away from her grasp and vanishing a good half of it in one huge, over-exaggerated bite. “You’re ten.”

“Twelve.”

“Whatever. You’re not supposed to be homeless. You’ve gotta be staying somewhere. Why don’t you wanna go back there?”

“It’s haunted.” She states, without hesitation.

In the corner of your eye, Kevin almost coughs up a bit of cheese.

>[X] "Who we gonna call?" >[X] "How haunted?"

“…Come again?”

“It’s haunted.” She repeats, in an exasperated tone. “You know. Ghosts.”

Well, this… this is new. Sort of. You’re starting to get a rough idea of what’s actually going on, though. Girl loses house in a big traumatic superpowered dealie, girl gets moved elsewhere, girl makes all kinds of goblins and ghouls an’ shit to populate this nasty new place with. Because new things are scary, right? Change is scary.

“Have you tried calling the Ghostbusters?”

Noriko snorts out a splatter of suppressed laughter. Kevin sort of grins. Layla… shakes on the spot, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. You feel any humour you might have injected into the situation curdle under the wave upon wave of cold, impotent rage.

“It’s not… it’s not a joke. This isn’t a joke.” Her knuckles are shaking. “Because stupid Captain America and friends were too slow I have to live in some big stupid place with loads of stupid kids and stupid old people in charge. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s haunted!”

Okay.

“How… haunted, would you say?” You try to sound a little less incredulous this time. You think she’s either about to cry, or explode. “On a scale of one to ten.”

“Like… like Poltergeist haunted. All the people in charge say it’s not but I know it is.”

>[X] Written in stuff.

“Okay, okay...”

You sit back on your hands, brow thoroughly furrowed and gears working. Well, she’s annoying, and she seems to eat a lot, and her opinion of you doesn’t appear to be all too stellar. But she’s also pretty exceptionally afraid and you doubt you could get her back to… wherever she’s supposed to be… if you tried. You’ve noticed that she’s pretty deftly avoided actually specifying anywhere in particular, so just dragging her off isn’t an option.

“Alright. You can stay here for now,”–

Her anger deflates somewhat and she looks, for a moment, like she doesn’t know what to say.

–“But only because you can’t be... I dunno, running around sleeping in alleys or whatever.”

When you’ve got the time you’re getting her back where she belongs. But with four hours to go till Creeper’s cutoff, that’s just not today.

An awkward peace descends and you take the opportunity to stuff yourself in preparation for tonight’s dubious events. She doesn’t thank you, which honestly kinda pokes you in the ribs a bit, but whatever, she’s twelve and sufficiently scared. And she seems to make Noriko feel kinda better – she’s a lot livelier around kids, it seems. Wasn’t there a name for some kinda therapy like that? Something with cats?

Laura takes a slice or two – just enough to keep her engines running. You can’t quite tell exactly what’s up, but she doesn’t seem to approve of having the kid around, which is reasonable enough you guess.

Time trundles on. Eventually its 4:30, and you’re steeling yourself for perhaps the most daring and stupid thing you’ve ever done. As if sensing your discomfort, Laura sits down beside you, initiating her awkwardly unyielding brand of eye contact.

“I know you don’t want to do this.” She states, bluntly. “I can help. I can miss work.”

>[X] “The less you have to do with Creeper, the better. Believe me.” >[X] Write in.

You would like some help. You won’t deny that. But you’re doing all of this to keep Creeper out of your life, and out of these people’s lives. You just can’t shake the feeling that anyone you bring along is another… another thing for him to latch on to. Another way in. Another vector for attack.

“The less you have to do with Creeper, the better. Believe me. Anyway, why are you so”–

She furrows her brow.

“You insisted on sharing my problems. Why is this different?” Roll a D20 for Persuasion. >DC 14 >+2 bonus for choosing tangible reasons rather than silly sentimentality Rolled 11 + 2

>[X] "Someone needs to say and take care of these guys." >[X] Write in.

You freeze for a second. She has a point… to an extent. But you’re not backing down, and you have a few points of your own.

“Way I see it, I chose most of my problems. You didn’t. And I got all mixed up in your world the moment I ran into that Kimura bitch. And”–

“I don’t see how any of this is relevant.” She says, defiantly.

You smile a little.

“Well… I was actually about to say that someone needs to stick around and watch out for these guys while I’m gone.”

This seems to give her pause, but her stare is still… well, you’d hesitate to call it critical, exactly, but that’s the best match you can think of. Eventually, she breaks the silence and stands up, moving to take one of the last slices of now quite cold pizza.

“Fine. I will stay here.”

Huh. That’s it? You kinda thought you had an argument on your hands there.

“Oh… cool.”

You spend the next hour resting, making sure that you’re in top form for whatever the hell ‘Mr. Negative’ and his pad can throw at you. Eventually, the time comes for you to leave, and you make your way to the door. Before you go you…

“Let’s just get this over with.” You respond, colder than the snow falling around your ears.

You turn round and squint as his power angles your vision away from his face. He beckons, strolling toward the old, rusted gate leading out into the streets.

“By all means.”

Yeah, yeah. God you hope this stupid tablet is small enough to fit under your coat, otherwise Mr. Negative’s crew are gonna be chasing your dumb ass halfway across the city. You wonder briefly if Creeper actually factored that in.

“Anything you can give me on the place? Layout, security…?”

“Ach-ach-ch…” You follow him out to the side of a road, where a tellingly nondescript van is waiting with its engines buzzing. He strides up and throws the back doors open, revealing a set of seats upon which sit two of the baldest and grittiest men you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. They’re covered in tactical gear and look like they could break diamonds on their chins. “That’s not really my business, boyo. I’m in logistics, supply/demand, etc etc etc… the boys’ll fill you in on the meat of the matter.”

They regard you nonchalantly as you get in.

“Be safe now, Johnny.” Coos Creeper, shutting the door behind you.

>[X] All.

You stumble a little as the van lurches into activity, making your way to an unoccupied seat. You see that the ‘boys’ (they look more like thirtysomething ogres to you) have spread a complex map detailing an interior. Floor plan, you’d guess. You nod toward it.

“Uh, that the layout.”

“Close enough.” One of the two grumbles, the low lighting making the tattoos that crawl across his arms and neck look like strange, barbed shadows clinging like parasites to some stony old giant. His accent is clearly not American, but you can’t quite pin it down. “General floor plan for estates built in the neighbourhood. Is just a big house before Negative bought it. Some things will be same, others different.”

His fellow points to a clear basement indicated in the centre of the complex. This one’s clearly French.

“We have a reliable source stating that the tablet – along with whatever else Negative is hoarding – is down here.”

“Security?” You ask.

“Oh, you know, so so.” The man of indeterminate Eastern European origin waggles his hand. “Negative put his bets on people just not knowing to look here. Cameras, armed guards, you know, nothing special. You can go vanish from cameras?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “I think so. So… how’re we getting in?”

Frenchie steps up to this one.

“Well, we aren’t going in. You are. That said, there’s a nearby rooftop close enough to act as our gangway. We’ll get you up there. Then there’s – you see this?” He indicates to a huge skylight on the plans. “This is your way in. We’ll rappel you down, you get the goods, we rappel you back up. Understood?”

You nod again.

>[X] "Any equipment?" >[X] Mr. Negative. >[X] Write in.

“Any equipment I need? Keys, a replica to keep any cameras fooled while I get out, anything like that? Any security codes I need to know that you can provide me? I'd like this to be quick and clean,”– emphasis on the quick. Real big emphasis on the quick. –“get in and get out operation.”

The bigger one grins.

“You are very much on the ball. Good, this is good.” He reaches under his seating a pulls out a harness, as well as a set of other little baubles. “This, very important. You need this on. All this other stuff…”

“…Is just as important.” Interrupts his partner, pointing to a photo being held out toward you. It depicts a solid black, sheer length of stone, one side inscribed with all the little men and animals and other random crap the Egyptians used for writing. “Need to know what you’re after, for one. Then there’s the card…”

His fellow inches forward, as holding out the items in his hand. Aside from the photo, there’s also a an ID card.

“…This is what’ll get you into the basement. It’s not a copy, it’s the real deal. We have till someone realizes that this thing is missing, or that its owner is face down in the sewer, to get in and get out. Swipe it when you get there, and there should be no problems. Lose it and everything goes to shit.”

Okay. You can handle that. Don’t lose the card. There is one last thing, though…

“I heard Mr. Negative’s not in. That true?”

They exchange somewhat amused looks.

“Well… no one knows where the glowy bastard holds down, to be perfectly honest. But this certainly isn’t his house, so he shouldn’t be around at this hour.”

Well, that… makes you feel better, you guess. Sort of.

You make very little attempt at small talk on the way. The bigger guy is actually kinda friendly (in a way that makes you very very nervous), but you’re just not in the mood – that pit in your stomach has been growing steadily blacker and hungrier and deeper for the last few hours, and it’s take a great deal of your self control to just suck it up and not chicken the fuck out.

Eventually, the van rolls to a stop and Mr. Pin – the French dude – opens the doors.

“Right. Out we go.”

You emerge into a quiet upstate neighbourhood. You must be on the edge of the city proper, where the world gets a little greener and the houses get significantly bigger. You legitimately haven’t seen this kind of shit in at least a year, so it’s… actually a little refreshing.

They hurry you along and ascend a fire escape leading up to the top of what appears to be a private clinic. Once on the roof, you can plainly see the roof of your mark, skylight and all. It’s a large, near- modernist building all built up out of stark lines and shades of white. Exactly the kind of thing you never saw back by Lake Michigan.

There’s a considerable leap between here and there, though.

Agility check.

>DC12 >+2 bonus Rolled 15 + 2

>17 >bueno

You’re pretty spry. Possibly supernaturally so. You can make it.

You give yourself a little runup and launch yourself up the telephone pole, your hands and feet flashing across the little ridges and studs designed to allow electrician access. You swing yourself onto the wiring and heave, steadily plucking your across the distance. Soon there’s roof beneath your feet once more and you let go, dropping down and rolling almost instinctually.

A dull, heavy thud makes you twitch nervously. Some kind of… harpoon punches into the roof beside you, and you look up to see your companions attaching the other end of the line to a raised point on the clinic. They slide across silently.

The Frenchman eyes you a little nervously.

“Muties. Insane.”

“Now,” his fellow interjects, resting a meaty hand on his shoulder “none of that, yeah? That is a word of hate, you know? My cousin, he is a mutant. Very good boy, too.”

Luckily it doesn’t grow into a full blown spat, and the three of you make your way to the skylight. On check your harness, just in case, and hope that you know how this shit works as well as you think you do. Frenchie withdraws some kind of suction pad and places it upon he skylight, while his friend uses a considerably larger-than-average knife (which buzzes faintly, its edge vibrating at God knows how many whatevers a second) to cut a large enough circle around it. Heaving, they remove the perfect circle of glass and attach your harness to a line connected through the bigger guy’s belt.

“Okay, so, you know what you’re doing? Down, unhook, pick up the goods, back. We’ll be watching from up here.”

Guess what guys?

Agility check to land silently.

>DC11 >+2 bonus Rolled 8 + 2

>[X] “Actually, I have no clue what I’m doing.” >[X] Fade out and descend. >10 >hah!

“Actually, I have no clue what I’m doing.”

Leaving them with that encouraging remark to think on, you fade out and descend.

They lower you inch by agonizing inch.

You glance down. There’s this huge, dark wood dining table right below you – no amount of manoeuvring or twisting around is gonna get you to the side of it, so you’ve just gotta be sure to not step on a plate or something. You twist about so that your feet are pointing toward the ground, and tug whenever you need a bit of a drop.

Eventually, you think you’re at about the right height, and unhook yourself.

Your estimate, it seems, was wrong. The silence is broken by a heavy thump as you drop about an inch or two onto the table and upset a little of the meticulously arranged cutlery. You cringe and strain your ears, pushing out the faint hiss of the cord being pulled back up.

There are two doorways out, one on each side of the room. If the floor plan was accurate, one leads you round the back of the house, and will get you to the basement quicker, but there are heavy footfalls approaching from that direction. The other leads to the front door and will involve you circling your way around the structure to reach your goal.

>[X] Head toward the back.

You want this over. You step off the table and pad your way towards the back exit, staying light on your feet.

As you approach, a pair of men in nondescript black suits turn the corner, stepping in, and your heart jumps a little bit out of your chest. Okay, so, they have guns and glasses as night. What type of guns you’re not exactly sure, but you’re fairly certain they fall into the ‘automatic’ range. And they’ll punch all the way through your dainty hobo flesh anyhow.

One of them stands by the entryway while the other strides into the room, his weapon levelled. You’re gonna have to be extra quiet when heading through that doorway.

>Roll a D20 >DC13 >+3 bonus for invisibility Rolled 16 + 3

>19 >Excellent Success!

You ghost by undetected, breathing out the quietest sigh of relief you’ve ever breathed.

Taking stock of your surroundings, you seem to be in some kind of study, or very elaborate lounge. There’s something-fur all over the floor, which is great padding for your featherlight steps, and if you’re recalling the plans right you want to take the door on your left.

You ease it open, glancing around the side. As expected, there’s a short corridor, which should lead you to a large room in the back of the estate with basement access.

You quietly make your way across the corridor till you reach a turning and feel the hairs on the back of your neck straighten up. There’s a guy right around the corner, breathing steadily and quietly. He’s not moving toward you, he’s not moving away either.

Okay. Shit.

Roll me a D20.

>DC14 >+3 invisibility bonus Rolled 16 + 3

>19 >Success!

You decide to take your chances at slipping by him. You’re not really too certain of your taser-hands’ effectiveness (last time you actually used them, after all, was during a fever dream), and you want this done with at quick as possible, so you sidle on by.

Luckily, you’re either lighter on your feet than you previously thought, or this guy is pretty much jobbing all night every night, and you go straight on through.

Nursing a heavy knot in your stomach, you make your way into a large, obnoxiously modern lounge, a set of indulgent sofas looking out through glass walls into a pretty considerable garden. There’s a bar set up against one of the walls, and, according to the floor plan, an entryway into the basement just beyond it.

Turns out it’s a trapdoor. With painstaking slowness, you ease it open and head down.

“…Hello?”

You breath bulges in your throat. Shit.

The steel steps lead down to a broad, dank chamber, various vintage wines lined against one wall. On the other is an incredibly out-of-place, high-tech door flanked by two probably very bored fellows. One of them is stepping forward, trying to get a good look at whoever’s opened the trapdoor.

“What the hell, man?”

>[X] Sneak and wait.

You step ever-so-lightly down to the bottom, padding along till you’re practically spread across one of the walls. You very nearly cock it up and send wine bottles flying everywhere, but you have enough of your wits about you to avoid the potential disaster and hunker in for the waiting game.

The two of them stare at each other, then back at the trapdoor, one of them edging a little closer.

His friend chortles.

“Just… just go up there, man.”

“It’s probably nothing. It’s probably someone being stupid.”

“We can’t just leave it closed all night. Just check it out.”

A moment of torturous silence passes, and the advocate of stepping upstairs finally, huffing to himself about how much of a bitch his companion is, trudges grumpily up the stairs. Leaving you alone with the other one.

Roll for silent takedown.

>DC13 >+3 bonus for invisibility Rolled 15

>18 >Success! >Finally!

You sidle along the wall till you’re just about at his back, and close in, sparks playing at the tips of your fingers.

He’s not even remotely expecting you, and you barely even feel him react as you wrap your hand over his mouth and let the volts loose. His body seizes up in your grasp, your hand suppressing a burst of frenzied muffles and some honestly very gross frothing. After a few seconds he goes limp, and you soften his passage to the floor.

Urgh, you think he might’ve vomited a little on your hand.

The door before you has no handle, and no lock. Just a card reader placed off to the side. Bingo – one swipe and the prize is as good as yours.

Still, there’s that other guy upstairs. You’re not sure what to do about him.

Roll to bring him down quietly.

>DC15 >+3 invisibility bonus. Rolled 17 + 3

For the second time today, you gently ease an unconscious, slobbering dude to the floor.

Taser hands are kind of creepy.

You drag him behind the stairs and check his pulse quickly, ascertaining that, despite all other signs to the contrary, you haven’t killed the guy. With that out of the way… well, there’s only one thing left to do. Get that tablet and put an end to this disaster of a night.

You swipe the card and the door hisses open, revealing…

THREAD 11: END

Thread 12

You’re John James Green, mutant vagrant and reluctant thief. And you have no idea what all this crap you’re looking at is.

Your breath catches in your throat as you step over the threshold into Mr. Negative’s trophy room. Total darkness greets you, but your funky mutant eyes easily cut an array of strange shapes out of the black. It’s a large room, filled with row upon row of raised daises. Upon each one sits… well, it’s all kinda stuff, really.

A sharp click echoes through the room and you flinch, glancing toward the door for a moment. One by one, the lights blink on. It seems, however, that Mr. Negative has a thing for dramatics, and each dais is lit by its own beam of focused, pale light, leaving the rest of the room drenched in black.

You glance over the three closest platforms. No tablet, but… well, this stuff is all pretty cool. From where you stand you can see a bright, sharp knife set lovingly into a velvet seating, a necklace set with a myriad

of clear, oceanic jewels, and a strange, smooth orb of yellow stone that seems to gleam with faint light of its own.

>Hunger Level: 3

>[X] Move on. This stuff isn’t what you’re after.

Well, whatever this stuff is, Creeper isn’t paying you to lift it. You step further in.

The air is stale here – though, you can’t help but notice, there’s a distinct lack of any dust. The air is just… still, as though mired somehow in the dark. There’s something like a scent in the air, like ozone, or acrylic, or something in between. It’s not nauseating or anything, just a little disturbing.

You whistle as quietly as humanly possible. A huge, wooden dragon leers at you from its perch atop a great platform to the far side of the room, its neck terminating in a mess of haphazard splinters. You think you remember seeing something like that back when TV was a regular thing for you. Viking stuff, you think.

You stop to check some of the nearby daises.

A large, bulbous jewel, carved in a manner that reminds you of bismuth, but gleaming like gold. A book of clearly immense age, its spine linked together with what appear to be shards of bone. A huge, silk gown covered in nonsensical scrawlings and yellow patterns.

>[X] This STILL isn’t the shit you’re after. Move on. >/tg/ demonstrates an uncharacteristic level of self-control

Why does this guy have to have so much weird crap? God, some of this gives you the serious heebie jeebies. Who the hell makes a book out of human bone?

You tread further in, reminding yourself to stay alert for all the various security measures that could very easily ruin your night. You pass by a dais of aggressively creepy china dolls, a chess set with no pieces you in the least bit recognize, and a crown of what appears to be coral, before spotting a patch of deeper blackness in the corner of your eye.

That’s it. That’s the tablet.

You pad up to it, breathing out a quiet sigh of relief at the discovery that it is, in fact, just about small enough to fit under your coat. On closer inspection, the symbols that you thought Egyptian are actually nothing of the sort – they’re no language you even remotely recognize. You reach out… and momentarily reconsider.

Should you really be handing this over to Creeper? To Wilson Fisk? It’s just a piece of rock, but there’s just this… this…

You glance behind you. Your senses could have told you no one was there, but you can’t help it. A haunting sense of scrutiny falls over you when you look at the tablet.

>[X] Look around some more.

You seriously feel like you’re being watched. Or, maybe not watched, but… something. Something is wrong.

You retract your hand, stepping back. Under cover of invisibility you make a short circuit around the room, staying alert for shadows that protrude strangely, or… moves or whatever. It’s not easy. The room’s full of weird shapes. Some of them more disturbing than others – you swear you pass by a severed hand at one point, but don’t give it a second glance (some suspicions are best left unconfirmed. Especially in dark rooms full of creepy dolls and angry suits of samurai armour and… other shit).

You come to a stop before one of the displays; a set of four long stones, with an apparently empty, fifth spot waiting to the side. This is pointless. You’re not seeing anyone, and… you don’t feel watched anymore.

It’s gotta be something about that tablet.

>[X] Head for the exit.

You hurry toward the door. Man, you can’t believe there was no… pressure alarm or whatever. What is this, amateur hour? No wonder you’ve never heard of this Mr. Negative guy. He’s C-list as fuck. Who the hell does he even fight, The Ricochet? Moon Knight, the poor man’s Daredevil? The Great Lakes Aven–

Your train of thought grinds to a halt as a low beeping reaches your ears. Oh man.

It grows louder and louder as you approach the exit and cross the threshold. With your ears, it’s not hard to tell where it’s coming from – the two guys you downed earlier and snuck away behind the basement stairs are chirping away in synthetic tones, some piece of techno-whatever on their phones or watches or something filling the room with noise.

It’s getting pretty noisy up above, too.

>DC16 >+3 invisibility bonus Rolled 20

>20 >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrWNbjw3RA

Well, you’re getting the fuck outta dodge.

You bolt. You hit the stairs in two short bounds and throw yourself at the trapdoor. The unfortunately familiar crunch of ruined cartilage greets you, someone yelping in shock and pain as the heavy door ploughs into his face. You’re briefly aware of a set of stunned and possibly a little terrified faces before you push straight past them, leaving a trio of suited obviously Triads fumbling with their firearms and screeching for someone to do something.

The lounge has filled up pretty quickly, but in the confusion nobody’s running at you – just at… everywhere they think might possibly help. Somebody shoots. The rounds fly past you and shriek through

the oversized window separating the lounge from Mr. Negative’s annoyingly huge garden. Someone else screams for them to stop, but by then you’re out, running back the way you came.

You make it to the huge-ass dining room and look up. Sure enough, your partners in crime are up there, perched against the skylight.

Goddammit you can’t signal them to drop the line without turning visible. That’s really not something you want to do.

>[X] Shout up at them, hope they hear you over all the bullshit.

Okay. You’re not going visible. Ever again, probably.

“Hey!” You shout up, waving ineffectually for some reason. “Hey, guys! Guys!”

It takes a moment, but eventually one of them pulls himself up to the entrance hole and stares down.

“It’s me! I’m down here! I’m here!”

Man, is that really what you want to shout? In this house full of angry armed dudes running around looking for you? Really?

The line drops. You hook yourself on and tug, feeling the world lurch as Mr. Big Eastern European Guy reels you up. They weren’t the only ones that heard you, though – you’re pretty certain that you hear a great many feet running in your general direction. Angry asian gangster feet.

This is taking too long. You’re gonna have to climb the rope.

>Roll a D20. >DC15 Rolled 19

>19 >Annoying Success

Okay, this line thingy wasn’t made for climbing. It grips way too much and it burns and you think if you squeeze the wrong way it might even do a little cutting, but right now you really don’t have the time to factor that shit in to your mad, desperate scrabbling.

You scurry up the rope with speed that surprises even you, hurling yourself through the hole Mr. Frenchie cut in the skylight and out into the sharp, cool night. You slide down the glass into an unrepentantly awkward heap.

You feel yourself flicker in and out of visibility as gunfire chatters down below. Man, keeping it going was way easier when you were just walking around.

“Come, comrade.” The big guy extends his hand to where he assumes you are. Did he really just say ‘comrade’? “Up, got to go.”

“Yeah.” Interjects his partner. “Pass the tablet and let’s go.”

>[X] “Later. Let’s just get out before Spider-Man or whoever turns up.”

You look up at this guy – this twice-the-size-of-you, tattooed to Amsterdam and back, bald muscular and gritty guy – and screw up your face in disbelief.

“You are ridiculous. Do you want to get caught or something?” He pauses, and glances at his partner, who just shrugs. “Come on, let’s get out of here before Spider-Man or whoever turns up.”

This seems to put some fire in them.

“Yah.” Says the big guy. “Yeah.” Says the French guy. “Yeah, good idea, that Spider-Man guy sure is trouble.” Says the other guy.

You freeze. Wait. Wait…

With the sloth of true, unbelieving dread, you look up at the skylight, toward the source of the voice. Your partners in crime follow your gaze.

It’s him. It’s red and blue and stupid bug eyes, perched on the not even remotely horizontal glass like it’s nothing at all. It’s Spider-Man.

Gimme a D20 for keeping your invisibility stable while tired. Rolled 19 >19 >bueno excellente

>[X] Run. >[X] Write in.

Well, you scream. Like a prepubescent girl at a One Direction concert. It’s Spider-Man, man. Big time super hero. Oh god. God, did he have dibs on Mr. Negative or something? Is that why he’s here? Does he really fight someone with a name as lame as Mr. Fucking Negative? Maybe he just spotted you on his merry spandexed way.

Oh God.

You know, you think the weirdest shit while terrified. For example, you’re kinda wishing you had a camera right now. You could probably sell a picture of Spider-Man for… for… lots of dollars. You can

see the headline now: “SPIDER-MAN MENACES OUR HOMELESS, How Low Can the Sinister Spider Stoop?”

“Wow.” He says (man his voice is actually more nasal-y that expected), in the aftershock of your little girl moment, nodding to your significantly larger and more imposing companions. “You friend has”–

“Smoke bomb.” You whisper, just loud enough for it to not really be a whisper.

And you fade out. You feel kinda bad about this, but, man, you’re not one of Creeper’s boys and you’re not going to jail for him. You’re especially not being beaten up by Spider-Man AND going to jail for him.

You scrabble up and dart between your partners in crime. As you pass by them you hear the big guy issue forth a bestial roar and presumably take his chances with a swing at the superhero.

Then it strikes you. How’re you even getting off the roof? The harpoon cord thing is still there, but it’s not exactly a speedy exit.

>18 >gud gud

>[X] Go for the telephone pole again.

The pole. The, er, telephone pole! That’s your ticket outta here.

You divert, sprinting across the roof like the devil himself has your blood in his nose. Spider-Man is… saying lots of stuff behind you, but you tune it out. You’d think he’d be more focused on, y’know, not getting punched by gigantic angry tattooed Russians or something.

You leap at the telephone pole, half expecting to just bounce straight off toward an unflattering encounter with the pavement, but your incoherent grasping and flailing apparently deserves some merit, and you latch on pretty well. You all but slide down, landing with a loud thud.

Shit. You realize that last jolt dropped you out of invisibility. You shake your hands in an effort to switch it back on, and they flicker in and out of the surrounding NY grey for a moment before finally settling on being invisible. For now.

>[ ] Run to the van. Vans are fast(er).

You bolt for the van. Gotta get outta here quick. Gotta get this done.

God Creeper wants another job from you after this, doesn’t he? The shit is endless. The shit is truly endless.

You know you’re flickering. It’s not constant, but it’s happening. Every few steps, every few breaths – shit, you really couldn’t have saved the A-game for Spider-Man, could you? God dammit if Creeper ends up getting you thrown in jail you’re gonna cut his balls off and wear them on your ears. Or try, at least.

Almost there. You can see the driver glowering at you like you’re doing something wrong. No, dude, Spider-Man’s after you. Running away very very fast is precisely the right thing to do.

>D20 >DC17 >+3 perception bonus Rolled 17 + 3

>20

Thwip!

You cringe. A blur of webbing sails over your head - exactly where your head was, actually, about 0.2 seconds ago - and spreads out across the side of the van.

The driver swears profusely and starts fumbling with his keys, screaming obscenities at you in the apparent hope that it will somehow galvanize your already sufficiently galvanized muscles.

He stops abruptly when a sheet of webbing seals his mouth shut.

"Language." Says the Spider. Significantly closer than he probably should be.

Roll me some athletics.

>DC17 Rolled 1

>1 >Shamefur Dispray

You can get away. The back door is like, what, five feet away? You–

Thwip!

Your leg jerks against the ground, and you go straight down on your nose. Ow. Oh, God, there’s blood an’ everything. Shit. You check your glasses – they’re fine. Why are you even… why are you checking your glasses? Spider-Man’s about to beat you up. You try to tug yourself away, but your foot is webbed fast to the floor. Shit.

“Man, you suck.” In the corner of your eye, you seem him all but fill the driver’s seat with that creepy web stuff. “You entirely suck. You left your buddies with, like, twenty angry dudes. And me.”

You know, you think he might be shorter than you. Is he shorter than you? You’re pretty sure he is.

>[X] “No, you suck.”

You know what? Fuck this. You don’t suck. You’re okay(ish). You’re not a superhero but you’re not a bad guy.

“No, you suck.” You spit out. This is just – this is just all the shit. Creeper tries to rob a supervillain for another supervillain, and of all people, you are the one Spider-Man is going to tow to jail. Where’s the mutie solidarity, man? Everyone knows he’s a mutant. His big brother or is dad or whatever’s in the X- Men. “I’m just trying to keep my hobo family alive. And you know what, why are you even after me? There’s a whole house full of thugs right behind you.”

He strides over, his mask obscuring any read you could get on him.

“Well, they’re all stuck to various stuff right about now. And…” He pauses. “You know, you’re kinda familiar. Have we done this before?”

What. No. You’re not a fucking supervillain!

>Perception test >DC16 >+3 bonus Rolled 17 + 3

>20 >Awesome Success >[X] Both

What kind of moron question is that? Are you really that generic? You don’t hang out with – with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and shit. You’re not one of the Sinister Six.

“Yeah. I’m DOCTOR DOOM.” You don’t know why you always raise your voice to say that. You’re pretty sure everyone does, though. “Don’t you recognize me?”

You roll your eyes.

“No, of course not, I’m a fucking tramp. I wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t have to be.”

Something shifts in the corner of your eye. What the hell was that?

The unexpectedly scrawny superhero scratches his head, striding closer.

“You sure? ‘Cause…” He stops, and you’re certain you hear him inhaling quickly. And you know something is moving behind him now. What is that? “…Oh. Uh… what, um, were you… doing? I mean, why were you here? If you didn’t wanna be?”

One of the shadows across the road disentangles itself from its mooring and moves silently towards you. A pair of bright, verdant green eyes stare straight into yours. Aw, shit, she didn’t… Laura fucking followed

you, and now she’s trying to sneak up on Spider-Man so she can… do what, exactly? Gank him? Wedgie him really really hard?

And what was ‘Oh’?

Eye-contact implications check!

>DC16 >+3 Relationship bonus Rolled 9

>9

“Well, I’m obviously not here to get into any superhero fights.” You say. Loudly.

Yeah, that’s a good hint. That’s actually pretty gold. People will take a hint like that. Then you remember that Laura isn’t exactly ‘people’. Shitdammit.

“Look, I just…” There has to be a way out of here that does involve stabbing someone, or getting Spider- punched, or a police car and several hours spent cutting through these ridiculous stupid webs (God you really hope he doesn’t produce this shit naturally, because if he does then… you dunno, it’s just not cool at all). “…I needed to get in there. My friends’ lives are on the line and I can’t exactly call the cops. It’s all screwed now, anyway.”

Eye contact will get Laura to stop. Yeah. You have great eyes, super vibrant and expressive an’ shit. You pour all that expressiveness into one very potent look.

She doesn’t stop. Why isn’t she stopping?

Oh. Oh.

You’re wearing sunglasses. Right.

She leaps. Spider-Man stiffens up and, like a red & blue banner caught in the wind, flips into the air.

Superhero fight. Great.

>THREAD 12: END

Thread 13

You are John James Green, mutant vagrant. You think you may have stumbled your way into a superhero brawl.

All you wanted to do tonight was break into some C-list supervillain’s high security pad, lift a priceless and ancient artefact of dubious historicity, and get out so that you could deliver it to a DIFFERENT supervillain (sort of supervillain. Creeper’s certainly a villain, but you strain to refer to him in the same breath has the

word ‘super’). There was a good cause driving you to all this, of course, but NY doesn’t seem to care, and has thrown at you the snappiest and wittiest (and shortest, apparently. Dude’s like 5’8”) of its superheroic denizens.

So now Laura is punching and kicking at Spider-Man (mostly, though, at thin air) in the middle of a road, while he jumps around like a pyjama’d up buffoon and you sit nearby, your foot stuck fast to the tarmac by a sheet of webbing.

Not exactly the ‘in and out’ scenario you were hoping for.

>Hunger Level: 4 >Current Funds: $15 at hand ($118.50 total)

>DC15 >+1 strength bonus Rolled 18

>18 >HULK IS THE LUCKIEST

“Hey, guys, you should”– you tug at the webbing coating your foot, putting your back and great deal of your breath into it –“I mean, this is just”– god this shit is tough, it can’t be natural nothing nature makes is this ridiculous –“you’re just being silly…”

You trail off, breathing heavily in exertion. Okay, chatting these two to a standstill can wait. First things first. You’ve fallen and you can’t get up unless you get this stupid shit off your foot.

You grab the slack between your shoes and the floor and heave, trying to weave your fingers into every gap you can find. Your hands’re gonna be covered in sticky crap by the end of this, but you need to get the hell up. You grit your teeth, clenching your stomach up, and feel… something squeezing through the flesh at the tips of your fingers. At first you think the webbing is pulling your nails off, but it’s not – there’s something ripping its way out of you, bit by bit by bit.

The webbing snaps and your foot comes free. You get a good look at your hands, and – it’s, they’re, there are claws, you have claws, big black talons extending from where your nails should be seated. You gape silently. God, you… you hope they go back in, or something.

You turn your attention to the fight. You recall vaguely that Laura had claws, too – she said something like that, anyway. But she’s not using them. For now Spider-Man is dancing around an increasingly complex series of kicks and jabs.

>DC17 >+3 Relationship bonus Rolled 20 + 3

>20 >GLORIOUS

You don’t think. You don’t have time to think.

You rush to your feet and throw yourself into the acrobatic brawl. Everything freezes for a moment – both players pause in momentarily surprise, and you capitalize on the brief lapse to grab hold of Laura’s shoulders.

Her eyes widen momentarily, a bright green ferocity welling up – perhaps unbidden, perhaps not – in her normally blank stare. More out of reflex than anything else (at least, you think so. It feels like that) she tries to rip herself away, but your strength manages to surprise you, and she stays rooted in place.

“Laura, stop. He’s not a bad guy.”

She snarls, her throat working out a series of sounds well outside of human range.

“We’ve gotta go. You can’t get involved with the cops.”

You can feel the blood crashing through her veins. Her heart is pounding, but her breath is long and measured, bulging through the night in warm tatters of vapour. She reeks of adrenaline – much moreso than Spider-Man does.

The tension slowly leaves her arms, unwinding out of her, letting her muscles slacken. She doesn’t move, though.

You look up at Spider-Man. Even through the mask, his uncertainty is obvious.

“Look… I can’t just leave you.”

Looks like Persuade or Diplomacy is gonna be one of the next attribute boost options. Gimme a D20.

>DC13 >+2 Relationship bonus Rolled 15

>15 >Great Success

“I…” Why is this even happening to you? This is supposed to be… Doctor Octopus or someone. Some goblin guy. This isn’t you. You’re not a great person or a particularly well-crafted person or even a competent person, but you’re not a bad person. “I’m just trying to help. I’m helping people. If the cops get my they’ll just stick me in some mutant camp in Arizona or wherever and the people I’m trying to help will die.”

You swallow, and say it:

“I’m not a bad person. I’m not…” You motion vaguely to Mr. Negative’s sweeping compound. “I’m not one of these people. I'm not a thief. I don’t have a master plan. I’m just a fucking hobo.”

The Spider regards you from behind those huge, bulbous eyes. You know, you’ve never really thought about it till now, but he really doesn’t look anything like a spider.

“I…” Did his voice break a bit there? How old is he? “I better not have to see you again, guy.”

Thwip. A line of webbing soars over your head, and, just like that, he’s gone.

You and Laura stand in the darkness of the street for a moment, breathing heavily, the last heady traces of adrenaline and fear clambering about your shoulders like tiny devils, leaping one-by-one into the invisibility of the air.

You met a superhero tonight.

>[X] “Thanks.” >[X] “Well, that was Spider-Man. Huh.” >[X] Just go home.

“Thanks.” You breath it out as a plume of grey-on-black. Laura doesn’t answer.

The snow tumbles silently through the dark, falling ever-softly upon the house that Mr. Negative built to hide his expensive sins, over the van, over the men on the roof. General across New York – and likely much of the coast – it falls over the two of you, too.

“Spider-Man. Huh.”

“He was exceptionally annoying.” Notes Laura, still clenching and unclenching her fists.

“Yep, he pretty much was.”

You glance at your own hands. Your… your claws are slowly inching themselves away, receding back into the seats of your fingertips. Claws, huh. You have claws. A few days ago you were just the invisible guy, and you weren’t even so great at being him. Now you have all this stuff.

The snow falls. You wonder what’s happening to you.

A bit of claw-work is all it takes to free the driver. He’s thoroughly pissed off, but he doesn’t seem particularly intent on taking it out on you – he just wants to get out of there, perhaps almost as badly as you do. You hop into the back of the van with Laura and head off.

The ride is bumpy. Driver’s probably still working out some anxiety.

In the half light, Laura’s eyes gleam like tiny wisps, fires perched on the edge of mystery. She stares at your hands and, haltingly, reaches out to touch the ebony talons protruding from your fingers.

“Since when have you had these?”

>[X] “…Honestly? I have no idea. Maybe always.” >[X] “Since five minutes ago, actually.”

“I’m… not sure?” You grin a little uselessly. It’s weird – claws are weird. The feeling of her flesh against the keratin isn’t quite like anything you know. “I guess I could’ve had them since forever, but they just…”

You straight out your hands and just look at them for a moment. It’s subtle, but your eyes are good – the bone structure has changed marginally, incorporating something, maybe a set of sheathes or fibres for flexing or something.

“…They just popped out back there.”

She stares. Her fingers brush the gently-curving edges, and you’re suddenly uniquely aware of every tiny movement in your hands, every little quiver or shake carrying with it the potential to bite into her flesh. You suppose she’s not too afraid of drawing blood.

“You’ve also developed the ability to emit electricity, and, though you may not have noticed it, your manual dexterity has increased significantly. Your physical strength, too.”

She looks up at you. The van hits a bump. You feel a bead of dark red warmth waver across one of your claws, down your finger.

“That is not normal.”

>[X] “Is it bad, doctor?”

“Uh… do you mean the bad kind of not normal?” You ask, a little nervously. You’re not sure you want to know if it’s something bad. But you press on anyhow. “Is it a problem?”

Laura shakes her head.

“I don’t know. I’m a genetic experiment, not a genetic scientist.” Was that a joke? You think it was. You offer up a small, easily-retractable laugh. “It is strange, however. While it’s not… unheard of… for mutants to possess multiple abilities, it is rare. Also, your powers are…”

She furrows her brow, clearly searching for the right word.

“…Haphazard. There’s little pattern to them. Is there any history of mutation in your family, beyond your sister? Your mother? Your father?”

>[X] “My dad's only superpower was staying in his study all day." >[X] "Pretty sure no mutation on my mother's side. I guess she was anaemic, if that's anything." >[X] “My sister isn't 'history'." >[X] "Sure there's a pattern." (point out a pattern)

“My sister isn’t ‘history’.” You respond, sharply. You feel Laura’s hands tense up and slip away slightly. That was kinda unfair, you guess, but… shit, you just don’t like talking about her. You suppose Laura never had to deal with siblings, being all cloned an’ all.

Only the tips of her fingers are playing at the points of your claws, now. She’s gonna cut herself again.

“Sorry.” You mumble.

“No…” She stares warily at you, her words forming like toesteps between shards of broken glass. “It’s… alright.”

You swallow again. You can feel her warmth travelling up your claws, edging at your fingers.

“Um, well, my dad’s only superpower was sitting in his study all day.” As far as you remember, anyhow. “And my mom… she was anaemic, if that’s anything. She never picked up any cars or anything.”

“I see.” She states, quietly.

“I guess… I’ve been getting all this stuff over the last few days, right?” She nods in the dark. Yeah, you’re not stupid. You have thought about this, at least a little. “Well, I’ve never been around this many mutants before. At once, I mean. Maybe I’m… reacting? Or something.”

“Advanced Adaptation is a documented ability.” Laura notes.

“Okay. Well, it, it could be that, y’know?”

“It could.”

You watch her eyes. She’s not convinced.

“You…” She clears her throat awkwardly. Her fingers retract. “When you explained your situation, you didn’t mention your father.”

>17 >bueno

“Oh? Yeah, I guess I didn’t.” Shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. “He died when I was little. I didn’t really know him.”

Something sparks off in your head. Hey…

“Hold up…” You unzip your coat, patting down the jacket beneath. “I think I have a picture with him in it…”

You rummage around in your jacket, sifting through the patchwork of pockets and ad-hoc openings until your fingers close around a set of photos. You withdraw them tentatively – these are, quite possibly, the only items of worth you own. Not of worth to anyone else, of course… but to you, they’re a lot.

You flip through them until you come to the pair you’re looking for.

“Here we go.”

Laura leans in, teetering over Lake Michigan and the boundless, stretching sands. There are four figures on the dunes. A small, slight woman in her twenties, the sun arching over her silly floppy hat, stands with her hand knotted into that of a dark-haired man just a little older than her. He’s smiling, or laughing, or something in between. On the left, a girl with his hair, on the right, a much younger boy with hers.

Laura points to the boy with the sandy blonde hair. “That’s you?”

You nod.

“Yeah… there’s another one, but it’s not a great picture. It’s some dinner party or something. I don’t think I was even alive.”

You glance down at it. It’s your dad, obviously, laughing enthusiastically at something off-shot. There’s champagne in his hand and he’s more… shaven than you ever remember him being. You don’t even know one of the other middle-aged dudes in the photo, though a little familiarity clings to a few faces - just not the kind you can pin down.

Laura stares at it for some length of time – long enough, actually, that you feel you should probably say something. You’re just not sure what.

>[X] Write in.

“…Guess I owe you two favours now.”

She starts a little, and glances up, shooting you a questioning stare.

“What do you…” She pauses. And smiles, lightly. “Oh. Yes, you do. I will collect.”

Her eyes are drawn back to the picture. You glance down at it, scrutinizing it for meaning, but it’s just a boring dinner party photo. It’s just some old guys laughing about something and sipping obnoxiously expensive alcohol.

“Something wrong?” You ask.

“…No.” She reaches out and places her finger upon the picture. “Who is this man?”

“Hmm?” You lean in and squint.

She’s pointed out one of the younger fellows at the edge of the photograph, standing there with a decidedly stiffer, more awkward bearing, the champagne barely grazing at his lips. Yeah, you’ve wondered that too. He’s one of the more familiar ones. A family friend or something?

“Honestly? No idea. Maybe a…”

“…Work friend? I dunno. I think I may have met him when I was very young, but…” You strain your brain, but nothing writhes to surface. Just a whole lot of chaff – just sandy beaches, and the smell of rosewood, and fire thawing like ice.

You sit in silence for a moment. Man, that’s gonna bug you all night.

“What…” Laura’s voice is a sifting, awkward tiptoe. Like she’s trying to pry something open without breaking it. “…What was your father’s profession?”

You shrug.

“Well, I was… really young, you know?” She stares. You guess she doesn’t know. “I guess it was something sciencey. Whatever it was, he was always working on it. Basically all my memories of him are set in that dumb little study room of his.”

“I see…”

Another moment passes in silence. You feel your claws retracting, reacting to the lessening tension.

“I think my father may be dead.” She blurts out, suddenly. “My… template, I mean.”

>[X] “Um, why do you think so?” >[X] “You know who it is?”

Well, that was sort of abrupt. Kind of. One dead father to the other, you guess. An awkward bridge but a bridge nonetheless. You scratch the back of your head.

“You know who it is?”

She nods. “His name is James Howlett.”

You know, this brings up a quite a few more questions. But for now:

“Um, why do you think he’s dead?”

She narrows her eyes, letting out a barely-perceptible sigh.

“I have been tracking him. That was my reason for being in New York in the first place. But every lead I follow seems to terminate in failure.” She bites her lip, just for a second. “It’s as though he’s simply vanished.”

>[X] “He?” You’re pretty sure Laura’s a girl. Pretty sure. >[X] “Why do you want to find him?”

You probably shouldn’t. You probably shouldn’t say it, but…

“…He?”

She blinks, but it doesn’t seem to faze her.

“His Y chromosome was damaged, so the facility simply reproduced a second X chromosome to compensate.”

“Oh…” Wait a minute. “Wouldn’t that end in total failure? I mean, you can’t just stitch genes together like that.”

Her brow rises into a rare vista of surprise.

“Yes, normally. But certain measures were taken.” She cocks her head to one side. “How did you know that?”

“Oh…” Yeah, JJ. How did you know that? You know you didn’t get that far in school. “I guess… I just picked it up somewhere?”

You shrug. You kinda thought it was a general knowledge thing, but, on second thought… you don’t generally know so many people that could tell you exactly what a chromosome even does. In fact, do you know any? A single one? Kevin seems kinda like a good listener, so maybe.

“Well, anyway, a dead lead isn’t a corpse.” You smile a little knowingly. Now here's a topic you're a true expert in. “It’s not all too hard to disappear if you really want to.”

>[X] Write in.

Yeah, no. As much as you’d like to be out of Creeper’s line of sight… no. You’re not handing this thing to some slippery middleman with a prominent gut and “I’m about to get punked by Daredevil” written in bold neon narrative right across his forehead.

“I’ll handle the exchange.”

“Hey, no.” The guy shakes the bag, as if somehow that would galvanize you. “That weren’t the deal.”

“Creeper said nothing about who delivers the package.” You state, quickly and simply. “I’ll handle the exchange. Personally.”

He doesn’t look happy. He doesn’t look happy or glad or really anything but angry, but then… then there’s that look again, in the corner of his eye, that something-verging-on-uncertainty. What is that?

“…Fine.” He rummages in his pockets for a phone, scowling up at you from under an impressively unkempt pair of eyebrows.

“I’ll set up a meet.”

Grand. Just grand.

>THREAD 13: END

Thread 14

You are John James Green, homeless mutant and amateur cat burglar.

You and Laura sit in the tumbling dark of the van, waiting patiently for some sign that you’ve arrived at your destination. You’d have been long gone by now, but, for some reason, you mustered the gall to demand that you, personally, be the one to deliver Creeper his prize – the onyx-black sheet of etched stone sitting snug under the folds of your coat.

Eventually, the van rolls to a stop and the back door swings open. You see little more than snow and alleyway before your tubby driver hunkers in, bearing in his hands a pair of thick, black scarves.

“Yeah, I think we’re pretty much warm enough, actually…” You note, somewhat nervously.

The driver looks like he could spit in your face at any moment. You get the distinct impression that this is not a happy man.

“They’re for your eyes, jackass. Wrap ‘em round your heads.”

>Hunger Level: 5

>[X] Put it on.

You feel your other senses stretch out as the darkness winds its way over your eyes. The cold, seeping through the van, prickles at your skin. The thrum of the engine roars in your ears. The acrid, queasy smell of gasoline burning away and away and away into the air fills your nostrils to the brim. Bit by bit, each little fragment retreats from the overlook of your brain, setting itself aside into a greater whole.

You start slightly as the driver grabs your coat, more wrenching you out than guiding you. Your boots sink into snow. You take a few tentative steps before Laura follows after you.

The driver circles around and pushes you both forward. You step carefully at first, but soon find yourself hurried to match his pace. You’re only outside for a short while before you hear a heavy, metallic door screeching open.

You hear Laura sniff noisily beside you. You get the vague impression that there’s a long corridor in front of you, but you still feel unnervingly isolated, small, and rudderless.

>[X] Hearing.

The echoes of your boots stretch out ahead of you. You were right – you’re being lead down a long pathway. Beyond, though, the walls thrum with a distant, mechanical percussion. It’s above you, beside you… steady, measured, even, incessant. Kinda reminds you of the sounds the presses make at the Bugle, just… heavier? There’s a subtly different beat to it all, too, but that could mean nearly anything.

You make a sharp turn. Soon enough, another set of doors open and you find yourself almost stumbling down a flight of stairs. They don’t go on for long, but there’s a short, seemingly meandering walk once you reach the bottom – you get the impression that the walls have extended outwards pretty significantly downstairs.

Finally, you’re hurried through a much smaller, wooden door, into a small, cramped room – you can smell the thick nature of the air. It’s humid in here, the atmosphere probably at least 20% marijuana. There’s a thick carpet beneath your feet.

You’re guided to a chair and set down. Laura sits down beside you.

After a short period, the door shuts behind you and the driver’s footsteps fade into the ether. You think you’re alone.

>[X] Sense.

>[X] Talk.

You resist the urge to patchwork up a working picture of wherever you are between you and Laura’s senses. Someone could be listening, after all.

“So, uh, how are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” She insists, her tone low. You guess she probably shares your suspicions. “It reeks in here. Marijuana, MDMA… another substance I’m not familiar with…”

You sniff the air.

“Dimethyltryptamine.”

“What?”

“It’s DMT. I used to run drugs for this guy, Laura. DMT isn’t all too profitable with Jack on the market, so I’d assume that it’s for employee use.”

You picked up a great deal of sweat, too. Fresh sweat. For a moment you focus your senses, trying to divine a rough outline of the room. You pick up old, stale furs, the subtle mingling of hallucinogens & narcotics, and… yeah, someone other than Laura is breathing, very softly, in one corner of the room.

>[X] Call out.

You lick your lips nervously. It doesn’t… feel… like Creeper, but you’re not taking any chances. You raise your voice.

"Right, uh, would our esteemed roommate please introduce himself? Or herself, I guess?"

For a moment there is only silent. Then you hear a slow, groggy moan, and the very particular sound of someone clearing their throat. It’s followed by the wet punctuations of a person realizing they have morning mouth and trying to clear away the taste. Huh.

You’re wondering what the hell is going on when the door swings open behind you. You jump a little inside your skin and perk your ears up. Three sets of footsteps. Two of them advance well past you, while other circles round, slowly pushing down your hood.

“The blindfold suits you, Johnny. Your girlfriend, too.”

Creeper’s voice.

>[X] Ask him to take the blindfold off. >[X] Ask who his friends are.

Oh, Christ, you can feel his breath again. Why does he have to get so fucking close?

“Hey, uh, the blindfold”– You feel his fingers brush up against the ends of your ears and stop abruptly, your stomach seizing up. Slowly, with drawn-out intent, the tip of his forefinger follows the overlong tubercle down to your earlobe.

“Uh… I…” You swallow and clench your fists. “You can’t introduce me to your friends with his blindfold up in my face, Creeper.”

His touch recedes.

“Very true.”

Surprisingly gently, he eases the scarf off your face. Vision seeps into your eyes, and you’re met by a dim, subterranean sort of environment, the low ceiling and lower lighting simulating the atmosphere of a cave or crevice. There’s a work desk sticking oddly to one side of the room, and a bunch of thoroughly shuttered windows beside the door, likely looking out into the rest of the building. Several carpets are strewn across the floor, and an assortment of pillows and furs cluster up in one corner, seating a very stoned, very sweaty young woman wearing a jumble of undergarments.

“Johnny, meet Geldoff”– He jerks his thumb towards a young, wiry man standing on one side of the room, sporting long hair and bright blue eyes. Beside him a short, paler fellow wearing a way-too-loose hoodie, obscuring most of his features. –“and Mortimer. They’re good pals of mine. Speaking of which…”

He treads over to Laura, stooping down over her. She doesn’t budge an inch.

“I don’t think you’ve formally introduced me to this young lass of yours.” He titters playfully. “For shame, Johnny. You were always so polite.”

>[X] Let her respond. >[X] Tell him where the tablet is.

You stay silent. He’s squatting down now, staring straight at her – well, probably. You can’t look straight at him, but there’s little chance that his eyes are aiming anywhere else.

“Warren. Laura Warren.” She states, bluntly and without hesitation.

“Laura, eh? Tell me, Laura, are you looking for employment?”

“I have a job.”

“Psht.” He waggles his hand dismissively. You feel his grin widening. “I’m sure you could do much better. How old are you, honey?”

“Creeper.” You interject. You know where this is going. “The tablet’s in my coat. Take it.”

He’s silent for a moment, and you get the impression that his eyes are almost squinting, boring invisibly into you from across the room. Eventually he backs away from Laura and… urgh, of course, he unzips your coat himself.

You hear him breathe in sharply as his hands close around the black stone. He licks his lips loudly.

“Oh, oh, Johnny…” He holds it up to what passes for light in that dank little crevice. “Oh, you do know how to please me. Plus, from what I’ve been told…”

He folds it away in his arms, holding it close to his chest.

“…You and your lass went through Spider-Man to get keep your hands on this thing, no?”

>[X] “Yeah sure we had a superfight. Can we go?” >[X] “We just ran away. We were lucky.”

You flail wildly for any thought that passes by. What did the driver say? How much did he ever see? How much did he hear? Does he know you just talked your way out of it? Did he tell Creeper how utterly fucking futile all your shit was – probably not, right? You doubt he wants his boss to know he spent most of the encounter webbed to his seat and doing shit all to help.

“We just gave him the slip. It wasn’t even a brawl.” Technically not a lie. Technically. There was something sort of resembling a fight, but it was over too quickly to be a real honest brawl. “We were just lucky.”

He watches you in silence. Why’s he gone so quiet all of the sudden? Does he know something. You feel yourself reaching back into your mind, into your genetics, getting ready to fade out…

“Johnny. So humble. Such a good boy.” Phew. He leans in over you, setting his hands against your shoulders. His strange field of unnoticeability pushes your gaze downwards. “Getting away from The Spider is no small feat, boyo. You did good. You did very good.”

Yeah… okay. That’s nice.

“Thanks…?” You clear your throat awkwardly. “Can, um, can we go now?”

In a flash, he straightens up.

“Of course. Geldoff, Mortimer, the blindfolds please.” He seems to sigh quietly to himself as ‘Mortimer’ (whose hands are really fucking sweaty and cold, by the by) pulls the scarf back up over your eyes. “Honestly, Johnny, you really should’ve stuck with me. You’ve got the stuff. The door’s always open should you reconsider your choice of lifestyle.”

>[X] “Nope.jpg” >[X] Write in.

Mortimer heaves you to your feet. He’s surprisingly strong for such a skinny guy.

“Not in a million years, Creeper. I’m not eager to end up in a camp.”

He chortles. “The camps are for people unaffiliated with Wilson Fisk. Besides… they can’t keep us down forever. We’re the better men.”

You’re wondering just how Creeper can in all seriousness call anyone else the lesser man when you feel his hand come down on your shoulder, its grip surprisingly tight. Surprisingly urgent.

“You remember that, Johnny. We’re the better men.”

He lets go. His goons shove you and Laura back the way you came, up the stairs and down the long passageway out into the cold. Eventually you feel yourself being urged into the back of a van – the same van? You’re not sure, but it’d make sense, you guess. Driver smells different.

“Vun more job now, eh?” Says either Mortimer or Geldoff. He sounds like he’s from Transylvania or some shit. Vun apple, two apple, HA HA HA. “The Creeper vill be in touch.”

They slam the doors behind you. The van mumbles to life.

Well. That was… kinda weird there at the end.

>[X] Talk with Laura. >[X] Breathe easy.

“Well… that was Creeper.” You slip the blindfold off your face and throw it aside. Laura’s already removed hers. “Sorry about, y’know, him being him.”

She shakes her head.

“I’ve known worse men.”

Well. That’s sort of impressive. You lean back against the side of the van, and breathe out a long, belated sigh. You’ve been tense for so long that loosening up almost feels kinda unnatural.

“Thanks again. For earlier.”

“It was nothing.” She insists, after a short silence, and leans back beside you.

The ride passes uneventfully. In just under an hour you’re being hurried out of the van by a much skinnier driver, your eyes greeted by the pristine silence of the park you and Creeper have made your meeting spot. You shiver a little, and glance at your watch.

11:20, PM. It’s late.

>[X] Grab some food.

You kinda like this place. It’s a shame you now link it to Creeper. It’s never too crowded here. You can sit tight and just… hear the city churning from the distance, like a storm on the horizon. Kinda reminds you of being behind a window during heavy rain – looking out, into the windswept, lashing dark, and knowing that you’re safe.

For once, Creeper was right. You didn’t pretty good tonight. Not the best, not great, but certainly good. And that’s enough.

“Man…” You sigh. “I’d say we should go get some food, but I’ve only got $15 on me.”

Laura looks back up at you with a small, furtively wry smile. Wait, didn’t you leave the money with… she didn’t bring it with her, did she?

“I held on to sixty dollars. The rest is with Kevin. Based on his behaviour, I believe he is less likely to relapse.” She pauses, and frowns slightly. “Though… he should probably not handle it with his bare hands.”

Ha!

You laugh. You can’t help it.

“Cool.” Yeah, cool. You feel pretty up for a proper meal. “I guess it’s your choice of food, seeing as I owe you like… twice over.”

“Correct.”

You set off into the city. Turns out Laura isn’t exactly hard to please, and she settles on this little diner about half an hour from home – one of those fluorescent-looking places with the giant plastic icecream perched like mascot on its roof. You order something with chicken an’ fries and all the sauces known to man, whereas Laura goes for a steak. And milkshake.

>[X] Talk about the Layla issue.

It’s weird. Whenever you’ve seen Laura eat anything, she’s generally subscribed to the ‘nibbling for like an hour before making any headway’ methodology, but she’s going at that steak like she’s expecting someone to steal it right from under her nose if she doesn’t finish it fast enough. The rare, near-bloody bites she’s taking would, you think, be generally described as ‘heaving’, or ‘bulbous’, or perhaps even ‘corpulent’.

You don’t wanna ask how much it cost. So you don’t.

“So…” You start, fishing for something to rev up some conversation with. “…Layla. What’re we gonna do about her.”

Laura raises one eyebrow.

“I believe we should have immediately identified her proper home and taken her back.” She says, firmly. Huh. >[X] “I think we should at least figure out what’s got her so scared.”

You fish around in your soggy, beautiful mess of chicken and fries while grappling with the problem in your head. You weren’t expecting such a complete, firm stance, though you guess Laura did seem to have some kind of beef with the kid.

You nod. It is a valid point. But…

“I think we should at least figure out what’s got her so scared, though.”

Laura glances up at you from her food, wolfing down an overly-large chunk of steak.

“Ghosts do not exist, John.”

“Well…” You chuckle a bit. “Yeah, sure, of course. I dunno, it could be something else. I feel like we should at least check it out.”

“Hmm. She is likely just acclimating badly to new surroundings.” She pauses, and raises her brow again. “Do you have a different theory?”

>[X] “She could be going mutant for the first time." >[X] “Orphanages aren’t always nice places."

“She could be going mutant for the first time. It activates at puberty, right? She’s, like, exactly the right age.” It wouldn’t normally be your go-to theory, but lately you’ve been running into mutants lefty & right. Everything seems to come down to your fellow homo superior. Maybe you’re just expecting too much coherence from the world… but hey, maybe you’re expecting just the right amount. “I’ve heard that telekinetics tend to start out with poltergeist-like stuff.”

Laura doesn’t look convinced.

“You have… encountered a statistically unlikely number of mutants in the past few days, John.” She pauses to annihilate another piece of meat. “The chances that she possesses an active x-gene are… low.”

“Well, yeah… you’re right.” You shrug. “Could just be something mundane. Abuse isn’t uncommon in the foster system.”

“It isn’t?”

You shake your head. She seems to consider this for a moment before delving further into her food. Man, that thing’s not gonna last very long. You’d better hurry up on your end.

>[X] “I think I’m gonna check it out after work tomorrow.” >[X] “You could come with, if you want.”

“I think I’m gonna check it out after work tomorrow.” You decide. “Just to be safe.”

You dig in to your food, taking a few bites before speaking up again.

“You could come with, if you want.”

Laura stares blankly at you. And stares. And stares, holy shit. And… curls the edges of her mouth up into a tiny smile.

“Would that not put me in unnecessary danger?” Oh. Right. “Surely it would be best that I stay out of your business? A ghost could do me serious injury.”

You chuckle kinda lamely.

“I should probably have expected that.”

Laura keeps her eyes on you while she munches down the last tatters of her steak, as if scrutinizing your every minute response. Eventually, she puts down her fork, and looks away from the table, out into the deepening night.

“I’ll go with you.”

>THREAD 14: END

Thread 15

You are John James Green, homeless mutant.

You awaken to the low mumble of the breeze slipping over the dunes. Your tent sways like the tide – you can hear the fabric rippling to and fro, occasionally flexing, occasionally yielding, the sun behind it blushing through, bright and sharp and relentlessly cold. The cold sticks to you like glue, seeping through your sleeping bag, though your blanket, through your tattered coat. It drags you back to a ruined apartment in the sprawling, forgotten scar tissue of New York, where you find yourself curled up on the floor with a blanket over your shoulders.

You stir quietly and glance at your watch. Its 5:54, AM. You’ve gotta be at the Bugle in roughly an hour. Somewhere behind you, Noriko and that new girl, the little kid, are whispering to one another. You think Kevin’s on the sofa. Laura took the mattress when you arrived back last night, though, if prior experience is anything to go by, she’s likely to be up by now.

Christ, you’re tired – it must’ve been early morning by the time you finally got to sleep last night. You just want to collapse inwards, fold up, go back to sleep. But you can’t, can you?

>Hunger level: 3 >Current Funds: $102.50 >X-Points: 1 >Karma Points: 1

>[X] Get up and slip out. Gotta get to work.

You shake off as much of the morning fatigue as you can and get up.

You’re not in any kind of mood to talk to or about Layla – or, actually, to anyone – so you fade out and slip away invisibly. Better get the morning out of the way as quick as possible. You want it to be the rest of the day already.

You pull yourself downstairs and out of the building, making your way across the snow-clotted scar and away into the city. It’s a busy morning, but nothing you can’t deal with. In your half-dosed state, you can

shut most of it out and live for a moment with your brain in a warm, blurry place between anything like a proper thought.

By the time you make it to the Bugle its 6:50. As usual, you hang around for a bit in the lobby before Vanessa waves you on through.

>[X] Stop to sign yourself up for tomorrow.

You stop yourself and veer towards the desk, where Vanessa glances up at you from beyond her spectacles, a small smile verging on her features.

“Want me to sign you up for tomorrow?” She asks.

“Uh, yeah, that’d be nice.”

You feel a twinge of shame as she flips through her little book and pens in your name. How many hobos do this for a living? It really shouldn’t be, but for some reason, the realization that your visits have become entirely predictable sort of digs at you uncomfortably. It’s like, it’s like you’re hammering these people over the head with your inadequacy. I’m a hobo, look at me, I’m soooo hobo!

“Oh!” What? “I almost forgot. One moment.”

She picks up her phone and dials a short, obviously in-house number. What?

There’s a moment of silence while she waits on the line, before she perks up, slipping on an immediately recognizable telephone voice.

“Hi, it’s Vanessa, down at the entrance. He’s here right now if you want to come down.” Okay what. “Alright. I’ll see you in a minute, then, bye.”

>[X] “Oh. Cool.” Wait there. >[X] “Did he say what he wanted?”

“Oh. Cool.”

What else can you say? Honestly, this was not what you expected when you got up in the morning. You said the kid could talk to you if he had to, but you weren’t expecting him to come all the way down from up in the upper atmosphere to the Bugle just to have a chat. But, on the other hand, at least it’s not Creeper. Or Kimura. Or, somehow, Mr. Negative. Or – well, you guess those are the only really awful names that come to mind.

“…Did… did he say what he wanted?” You ask, your voice still straining to hide a tatter or two of leftover nervousness.

She shrugs.

“Not really. He just asked me to call him when you turned up.” She furrows her brow a little. “I’m surprised he’s still in today, actually. Shouldn’t he be at school in an hour?”

Yeah, he probably should. You shrug back and settle in to wait for a bit.

After a few minutes, a scraggly, unkempt version of Parker comes hurrying down the stairs. He glances over the lobby and, spotting you, waves.

“Hey!”

He makes his way toward you.

>[X] “Hi. Can we talk and walk? I need to grab my stuff.”

“…Hi?” Yep, hi is good. “Can we walk and talk? I need to grab my stuff.”

“Oh? Oh, right, yeah.” There’s something uncertain in his voice. You detect a tenor of something like caution, or suspicion. Or... something. “Thanks, Vanessa.”

Also, there’s this thing… about him… that you can’t quite add up into a whole.

You head on into the back corridor to pick up a stack, all the while wondering what the hell is wrong with this particular Peter. It’s not his smell. It’s not his pace, or his voice, or anything like that. There’s something missing and for the life of you you just cannot fucking pin it down.

>[X] “So, what did you want to talk about?” >[X] “You’re here a little late. School’s starting soon.”

“You’re here a little late.” You note. “School should be starting soon, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I was gonna head off soon, actually.”

He does have his schoolbag on him, so you guess that’s probably true. Still kinda odd that he waited around for you.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

You heave up your chosen stack, reeling a little awkwardly when you encounter an honestly surprising lack of resistance. Laura wasn’t kidding when she said you’d gotten stronger. Last time you lifted one of these it took actual effort. Now you’re pretty sure you could do this all day.

“Yeah, I was just wondering…” You glance down at him. He’s choosing his words carefully, you can tell. “I mean, it was really cool of you to offer to help yesterday. And I was wondering, y’know, are you okay? You seem kinda stressed all the time, and it’s getting pretty cold out now…”

You get the impression that he’s running up to something with all this, but it’s mostly looking to be going in circles for a while.

>[X] “It’s not my first winter on the streets. Thanks for asking, though.”

“It’s not my first winter on the streets.” You respond, smiling lamely. In different context maybe the ability to survive the winter with nothing but the clothes on your back and a questionable set of wits would be impressive, but here it just means you’re a longtime loser (rather than a regular loser). “I’ll manage.”

“Yeah, uh, okay…” He scratches the back of his head. Man, what is it about him today? Seriously, what the hell can’t you place about him?

He puffs out his cheeks and sighs.

“Okay. John, are you a mutant?”

Fgsfg.

Were you fancy enough to afford coffee, you’d… you’d just be spitting that shit everywhere, it would be horrible.

>[X] Write in.

Oh shit.

Oh shit you think you’re gonna choke on the god damn air.

Why? Why, how, why did this happen? You haven’t done anything remotely mutie. You’ve just… handed out papers. That’s not a mutant power (well… you guess it could be, theoretically. Strange would an’ all. But it’s not one of YOUR powers), that’s a very boring profession with few opportunities for advancement.

Should you be running? Why would he even ask that? Did you forget your shades (nope, nope, they’re there)? What’s his problem? Is the front really the nearest exit? Because that’s… a whole lotta people between you and there. What if he’s told everyone? Why would he tell, he doesn’t even know, right?

He’s asking because he doesn’t know. He just suspects.

He doesn’t know. He needs the proof!

You look down at him, and put on your most gangsta face.

"Why would I ever allegedly admit publicly to being somebody who can't legally ride the subway, cross state lines, or eat in a restaurant? That would be silly and horrifying. Thank goodness that I am not a mutant at all, that is the least thing I am, which is zero point zero percent. Goodbye fellow Human, I must go and hand out newspapers to other fellow humans."

Fucking. Nailed. It.

Time to blow this popsicle stand and hand out some papers.

You turn to leave, but stop when you feel Peter grab your jacket’s puffy elbow. Damn you and your love for giant warm things.

“Hey, no, dude, I’m not gonna tell or anything. I’m just… I just wanna make sure you’re alright. You can’t stay in any of the shelters around here, right?”

“Look…” Jesus, man, you can’t believe this shit. Maybe he is just trying to help, but… “This isn’t something we should be talking about in public.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not”–

“If this gets out I could lose this job, and I really, really need it.”

“I know.”

You shoot him a small, fatalistic sort of smile, probably mitigated somewhat by your (entirely logical) refusal to remove your sunglasses indoors. He seems like he wants to help, but damn, why would he just blurt that out? He’s clearly not stupid.

“Then you know that I should probably be going now.”

“Uh… yeah, I guess.” The look on his face tells you that this wasn’t quite the conversation he was aiming for.

You head out into the cold, harried by the disappointed, almost downtrodden image of Parker’s face. Maybe you were the first mutant he’d ever met? You know some kids think the whole mutant thing is kinda cool, despite everything the world has to say about that. Maybe –

Wait. His face. It was supposed to have a bruise – a bigass one, too. Where the hell did that go?

You stop in your tracks, the Bugle now several streets and twenty odd minutes behind you. Maybe you weren’t the first mutant he’d ever met. Maybe you were the first OTHER mutant he’d ever met…

Oh, dang.

>[X] Go back. Maybe he’s still there.

You turn around and run back, jostling through a crowd of disgruntled New Yorkers.

Oh man. You might have been a little thick there. Just a little bit stupid as fuck. You could be wrong, of course, and he’s just a snotty little busybody with seriously underdeveloped boundaries, but… it doesn’t seem like that. And, really, who the hell heals a shiner of that magnitude within a day? You're honestly surprised no one else took notice. He should probably get used to wearing bigass plasters or something if he wants to retain a functioning social life...

By the time you make it back to the Bugle you’re breathing hard, a thin gauze of sweat accumulating under your raggedy layers. Vanessa shoots you a confused glance as you hurry up to the desk.

“Shouldn’t… shouldn’t you be outside right now?”

“Uh…” You just breathe for a second. “Yeah, yeah, I should, I just… is Peter still here? I just… worked something out.”

She keeps her eyebrows thoroughly raised.

“No …” Dammit! “He took off shortly after you did.”

>[X] Drat. Go back to work.

“I… see…” You’d sigh, but you’re too busy being out of breath. “Well, thanks.”

Oh man, now you have to run back. Again. Nice moves there, JJ. Just stellar.

You huff and puff your way out, chiding yourself in bedraggled, breathless silence. You can’t believe you didn’t notice that shit till it was too late. What the hell do you even have these awesome eyes for if you’re not gonna be paying attention to what they’re tellin’ you? Stupid, stupid.

It’s a little later than usual when you finally reach your destination. The nearby underground station is already vomiting out a steady stream of commuters, which you’ve missed the first twenty-or-so minutes of. Bummer – you get a ton of your pulls from that initial heave of bodies.

You shrug, put your troubles in a box, and settle down for some paperwork. Of a kind.

>gimme a D20 >-1 modifier for LATE CHILDREN MUST BE PUNISHED Rolled 18 + 1

>17 >goodu jobbu >normally there'd be a random event roll here... but seeing as you're already dealing with one, it'll have to wait

Time flies when you switch your brain off and lurch at people with papers.

The bustling traffic of coming-and-going pedestrians keeps up a while longer than usual today, and you manage to rid yourself of the greater portion of your stack within an hour. After that, it’s just a matter of mopping up – you relax and shut down, letting the passers-by grab and snatch at their own leisure. After two hours, you’re down to zero papers and pretty soon should be sixty dollars up.

You check your watch. 10:20.

Loitering at the sidewalk for a while, you consider your options for the rest of the day, steadily growing more and more aware of your growing hunger. You’d planned to find out what Layla’s deal is, but that was before this whole Peter thing. You might still be able to track him if you put some real nose into it. Then there’s the matter of food, fuel for the stove, etcetera etcetera.

Your life has become pretty high maintenance by hobo standards. You kinda like it.

>Hunger Level: 5

>[X] Both.

Tempting as the prospect of a short nap on the sidewalk is, you heave yourself up and head back the Bugle.

It’s nearly eleven when you get there, but you’ve not exactly short on time. Vanessa gets you your cash and you stride out sixty dollars richer. What should you do with this great boon?

According to your stomach, you should pick up some KFC.

You take a short walk down the street to one nearby the Bugle and get in line, making sure that your various identity-obscuring effects are in place and nobody’s gonna deny you your right to unhealthy fried- up chicken. Eventually, you’re up, and the kid behind the desk asks for your order.

You realize, to some amusement, that this moment is going to kinda set your course for the day. Do you order some bigass buckets and head home to work out this Layla crap? Or do you buy just enough for yourself and go track down Peter? Destiny hangs on a greasy, chicken-y edge.

>Current Funds: $162.50

>[X] Big bucket. Head home.

You order… the big bucket. The famous bucket, in fact. Destiny groans sloppily into place, smelling vaguely of grease and flab. Peter’ll be at the Bugle tomorrow, right?

You leave with your gigantic bucket and head back the scar. The streets are pretty busy today, but it doesn’t take all that long to get home – you’re at the base of the shattered apartment block by 11:50, and are soon crossing the threshold to mutie squatter central.

“Hey, guys.” You stride in, grinning toothily. “Food an’ stuff.”

“Finally!” Exclaims Layla, who appears to be taking part in some kind of… game, thing… with Noriko. You know, the thing with the hands, and they clap their hands together and stuff… It’s a girl thing, you don’t know what it’s called because you’re a manly man lizard. “I swear to god, if I smell another liver I am going to hurl.”

Noriko just shrugs sort of apologetically. “Laura told us what happened last night. Spider-Man, huh?”

“Please, please, please tell me you got his autograph.” Interjects Kevin, who is, as usual, giving the others a wide berth. He’s sitting in what looks like a pile of ashes.

Laura doesn’t seem to be around.

>[X] Talk to Layla about her problem. >[X] Ask where Laura is. >[X] Talk to Kevin ‘bout something (write in).

You slump down, placing the bucket between you. Layla goes at it with prodigious speed. Hmmm. Maybe her shelter or whatever was inhabited by the ghost of a kindly old lady who found her clear lack of etiquette positively appalling. Or maybe not.

“Sorry, dude.” You reply to Kevin. “I got my feet webbed to the floor, though.”

“Aaaurgh!” He collapses back in disappointment, cradling his face in his palms. “Do you know how much superhero autographs go for?”

You hadn’t considered that. Well, whatever. How would you fence it anyway?

“Hey”– You bite into a chunk of succulent greasy artificially fattened chicken. Oh god yes. –“Where’s Laura?”

“Oh, yeah, she went out about an hour ago.” Replies Noriko. “She does it to keep in shape or something.”

“Oh. Right.” Yeah, that makes sense, you guess.

You turn your attention to Layla, who is on her third(!?) piece of chicken already.

“So, um… I was thinking about your…” You sigh. Heavily. “…ghost problem.”

She pauses and fixes you with a standoffish gaze, still toting a piece of wing between her teeth.

“You really can't stay here forever. But I want to see what I can do to help, alright?”

>[X] Ask her where she came from >[X] Ask her if he’s considered a mutant-y explanation. >[X] Ask her what kind of things the ‘ghost’ has done.

“What’re you gonna do?” She asks, somewhat mockingly. “You’re not the magic type of hobo, you don’t even have a proper beard.”

This kid.

“I don’t know. Something. But I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me where you came from.”

“Well, one day my mom and dad decided that they wanted a”–

“Layla.” You interrupt her, causing her to start slightly. “Do you want my help or not?”

She stares at you in silence for a moment, rubbing her arms and half-glaring at you.

“…Sacred Tree. It’s not far from here. It’s an orphanage.”

Yeah, you guessed as much.

“Alright. Well, what… what kinda stuff has this ghost done?”

“It’s… it’s done ghost stuff, y’know…” She shakes her head and titters something under her breath – that you don’t even believe her, no doubt, or that you’re a buttface or whatever. “Everyone started having bad dreams. And then we started seeing the faces, in the dark.”

Telepath, then? Maybe?

Her voice is small now. Quiet.

>Perception check >DC15 >+3 modifier Rolled 1 Haha holy shit. I don't even know how to write this critical failure.

>1! >not very critical critical fail!

You sigh. Bad dreams and faces in the dark don’t really bode well for this not being a gigantic waste of time. Could be a telepath, could be something else… but, seriously, nightmares aren’t exactly what you’d consider clear signs of poltergeist activity. Laura’s hypothesis is materializing further and further into reality, it seems.

Still…

“Okay, I don’t know if it’s really a… ghost you’re dealing with here.” You notice her smile sort of knowingly. You guess she was expecting skeptics. “But how about we go down there and check it out? You can show me some of this stuff and… maybe I can do something.”

“Fine.” She huffs out, almost reluctantly. God, you hope she hasn’t just made all this up.

“Hey, can I come?” Interjects Kevin. “I think I’m getting a little stir crazy in here.”

“Hey, can Noriko come?” Sing-songs Layla.

Uh…

>[X] “Sure, I guess? Noriko, you wanna tag along?” >[X] “Are you guys sure you can, y’know… be around people?”

Ah, there are few ways to be delicate about this.

“Are you guys sure you can, y’know… be around people?”

“Well, I’ve been practicing.” Kevin declares, sifting through the ashes beneath him. You were wondering about that stuff. “It… hasn’t really helped all too much, but I should be fine so long as I don’t touch anyone.”

You glance over at Noriko – Noriko of the chills and the sweaty brow and the black rungs under her eyes. She’s looking a lot – a LOT – better than she was when you first ran into her, but you’re not entirely sure she’s out of the woods quite yet. Being around Layla does seem to help, though.

“You okay to tag along?”

“I…” She looks toward Layla, putting on a smile. “I should be okay. Just… keep me away from any power lines.”

“Alright then. Okay.”

Full house, it seems. Full Scooby Van, rather.

“How’re we doing this?”

You’d planned to just grab Laura and run over there for some sneaking around, but with all five of you going ghostbusting matters have become somewhat more complicated. The others could maybe do some kinda distraction thing? Kevin looks pretty proper despite months of homelessness (you think he disintegrate all possible grime), maybe he could pretend to be some non-hobo person.

>[X] Wait for Laura and go during the day. You did promise, after all.

“We’re waiting for Laura.”

Layla rolls her eyes.

“She’s the one with actual experience.” You assert, frowning down at her. “She’s also probably the best of us in a brawl, and while I don’t want that, I’d prefer she be around when some asshat calls the cops about a bunch of suspicious mutie kids. This girl fought Spider-Man.”

You leave out the fact that she was mostly unsuccessful.

“We’re waiting for her.”

And then, you guess, you're going ghostbusting.

>THREAD 15: END

Thread 16

You know what’s pretty cool? You’re pretty sure you can jump higher now.

A week ago you’d have required a run up – or at least a short stretch beforehand – to scale the wall standing between you and your mission, but now you scamper up to the top with almost practiced ease. You perch momentarily at the top, surveying the orphanage grounds.

Layla was speaking truly – there’s a small yard that leads off into a collection of stubby, cultivated plots, currently drowned in frost and snow. An old, wooden door stands at the back of the main building, and you bet the other one is round the side somewhere. Luckily there’s no windows within easy spotting- distance of you, save those on the second floor, and those rooms look thoroughly empty.

You extend your hand to your fellows.

“Uh, you guys don’t mind if just Kevin comes with for now? I was kinda hoping someone could… make a noise, or something… if there’s anything we should know about outside.”

Layla nods vigorously. “I’m good.”

“What do we do if someone spots her?” Asks Noriko, motioning toward Layla.

You shrug. “I dunno, something. Just… don’t electrocute them unless absolutely necessary.”

You can’t believe you have to say that. You should never have to say that. Electrocution should always be the last possible resort – it should just be a given.

“Laura?”

“It’s tactically sound.” She states. “We will activate a pair of car alarms if anything goes wrong.”

“Good thinking. Kev?”

You reach out to help him up, making sure to grab his gloves and absolutely no part of his bare skin. He struggles a little, but you find him surprisingly light, and soon you’re jumping down into the yard. You make your way to the back door, staying low. Kevin pads out in front and slips off one of his gloves, reaching out to place a single finger on the wood surrounding the metal lock…

>Perception check! >DC14 >+3 modifier! Rolled 11 + 3

>14 >boring success!

Your ears perk up. Something creaks, dragging on and growing steadily louder, until–

Without explanation, you shove Kevin round the corner, your finger snapping up to your lips in a clear demand that all noise cease immediately. He stares at you in baffled silence as you strain your ears. On the far side of the building, a door swings open, and a pair of heavy feet trudge out into the snow. A cavalcade of unseemly, greasy scents – fish oils, potato mash, tomatoes, all stirred up and fermented in god-knows-what-else – drifts by and you hear something large and metallic swing open. There is a heavy thud – loud enough for Kevin to hear it – and the footsteps recede back into the building.

Sweet Jesus.

“Fuck.” Proclaims Kevin. “Fucking fuck, fuck.”

“Indeed.” You agree. “That was kinda close. Sorry about the manhandling.”

“It’s cool.” He ventures quietly out and retakes his position by the door. “It’s a lot better than being on the child protection list or whatever.”

Urgh, you hadn’t considered that. Man you don’t wanna be a hobo and a reputed sweetie-man.

You watch in silence as Kevin traces a thin line of decay around the lock. Eventually, the whole thing just comes loose and slips out, the door hinging slightly open at the breeze’s touch. Your companion pulls of trademark gloves back on and edges the door open.

Awaiting you is a small, dank room leading out into a corridor. The front of the building is visible at the end, along with a set of stairs leading up. The other side of the passage is lined with doors. Coat hooks dot the walls around you and dull, faded green wallpaper is omnipresent.

Gimme another Perception check. No set DC Rolled 16

>19 >bueno success

You stop, and shut your eyes, and just… listen.

Kevin’s breathing – he’s trying to keep it light, but to you it’s nothing of the sort – fills your ears. You push around it, stretching out, seeping through the pores of the building. Wind howls outside. Old wood groans incessantly, warping and shifting in barely-perceptible, minute ways. Voices cut through the din. Little squawks at first, but it build and it builds till you’re dealing with a clamour of tiny voices. It’s coming from the far side of the building, beyond the stairs. There must be a doorway nestled behind the stairwell, just out of sight, probably leading into the hall Layla mentioned.

You draw your senses back and shift them upwards. You get rats scurrying and windows clattering occasionally as the breeze brushes over them. And then – one, one and two – two sets of footsteps, not directly above but a bit further along the building. Light, but not too light.

You open your eyes. The visual world rushes back.

>[X] Fade out. >[X] Go up the stairs.

You shift out of visibility, prompting a surprised hiss from Kevin.

“Dude, seriously?” He mutters, glancing around for you.

“I’m, uh, still here.” You whisper back. “I haven’t moved.”

“Man, someone should put a bell on you. Can’t you… I dunno.. bring me in, or something?”

“I’m pretty sure I can’t. Hold on.”

You grab his hand, feeling him start slightly. Just two layers of gloves separate you and the Touch of Death.

“Great.” Mumbles Kevin, as you lead him towards the stairs. He has to press himself close to the stairwell to avoid the open doorway just off to the side, and a minute of painstaking, awkward handholding later you’re at the bottom of the stairs, glancing up.

What’s the term for this kind of house? Edwardian? Georgian? Something like that. It’s got lots of old wood and fancy bannisters and stuff, though most of it seems to have seen far better days. And the green wallpaper if honestly kinda queaze-inducing. There’s a wide landing upstairs with a set of doors on one side and a corridor stretching out back into the house.

You ascend step by cautious step, glancing about for anyone that might be watching. Turns out there’s another door on the right side of the landing that was previously imperceptible – that’s where the footsteps you heard earlier would’ve been coming from, you think.

>[X] Check out the room to the right. >[X] Tell Kevin to keep watch at the stairs.

Footsteps means people. People means voices to be overheard. Potentially.

You creep across the landing, taking care not to upset the insanely ancient floorboards.

As you close the distance to the door, you perk up your ears somewhat. There’s no need to lean in close – just listening hard does the job well enough.

“…told them we’re at wits end.” Raspy. Feminine. Tired. “We’re just not equipped for something like this. No offense to you.”

“That’s quite alright. Did they give you a timeframe?” Another woman. Younger, softer-spoken.

“A specialist should be arriving this afternoon. They said three’o’clock, but, well, you know how they can be…”

In the following silence, you realize that there are more than two people in there. Three? Four? They’re not talking, but you can hear at least one other person breathing.

“Well, I should be heading down soon. It’ll be time for afternoon classes soon.”

Ah crap.

You glance over in Kevin’s direction. He’s not quite visible from there, but he’s gotta still be on the stairs.

Agility check. How quiet can you run over some old-ass floorboards?

>DC14 >+2 modifier Rolled 18 + 2

>non-natural 20 >apparently pretty quiet

You leap surprisingly quietly across the landing, practically skimming over the decrepit floorboards. Somehow you don’t think Kevin’s going to be half as graceful, but you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it.

You come to the stairs and find Kevin sitting on one of the steps, watching the doorway down below in tense silence. Man, he’d never have even seen her coming.

“Kev!” You hiss, and tug on his jacket. “Up the stairs quick!”

He nearly jumps out of his skin, but gathers his wits just about well enough to stumble up the stairs after you, guided by your urgent yanking. You pull him into one of the unoccupied rooms on the left of the landing and ease the door shut after you, breathing out a long, warbling sigh of relief.

“What the hell was that?”

“Someone was coming.”

You stake stock of the room. It’s clearly a bedroom, but probably not for any of the kids. A double bed, sits on one side, looking like someone just cleaned it up for a photoshoot. The place is spotless – the desk in one corner is entirely liberated of dusk, the pictures at the bedside sit in perfect rank and file, and there’s not a cobweb in sight. A cross hangs over the bad (come to think of it, there’s at least one crucifix hanging over every room you’ve been in).

>[X] Listen at the door. >[X] Write in.

“Hey, Kevin.” You whisper.

“Yeah?” He responds, glancing at the empty space just to your left. You don’t bother correcting him.

“Mind looking around a bit while I listen?”

“Oh, right. Sure.”

You press your ridiculous pointy ear up against the door and clamp your eyes shut. Once again, the world changes from one of colours and lights to one of waves and currents, your open self seeming to perforate the building’s nearby crevices. After three or four minutes you hear the door on the other end of the landing creak open and a set of footsteps advances to the stairs, tromping down to the first floor.

You back up.

“She’s gone, I think.” The other one’s still in there, though.

Turning around, you watch Kevin as he roots through the personal effects of whoever owns the room. Mostly he seems to have upturned a solid collection of scholarly-looking books and an honestly kinda daunting number of different reading glasses.

This all seems pretty… normal. So far you’ve risked two heart attacks, but neither have been the result of ghost sightings. Whatever was in that other room did seem kinda interesting, though.

>[X] Nudge the door open.

Well, what else are you gonna do?

You reach out tentatively and – ever so lightly – push the door inwards. It creaks unexpectedly loudly, sending a small start up your spine, and inches steadily open.

You don’t have time to enter – almost immediately, a small, mousy woman in her mid-twenties crowds the doorway, forcing you to step back as quietly as you can. For a moment you think she’s actually staring straight at you, but as it happens, she’s staring straight THROUGH you, and soon glances off down the landing.

“Daniel?” The silence yields no answer. “…Jason? Is that you?”

Shifting awkwardly, you crane your neck around her. The room beyond is a stark, empty space that you’d generally have pegged as a spare room. Square in the middle, however, two thoroughly out-of-place beds house a pair of children perhaps a year or two younger than Layla. One boy, one girl, breathing shallowly and surrounded by machines that you vaguely associate with hospital dramas.

>Perception check >DC14 >+1 modifier Rolled 20 + 1

>20 >Sweet Jaysis

Man, their chests are barely rising… and they’re not moving at all. No ticks, no tiny shudders, no awkward slumbering shifts. You’re no medical expert, but your eyes are pretty damn great, close enough to see that their eyelids are pretty much still. So they’re not in REM sleep.

Also, there’s a guy standing right behind them.

There’s a guy standing right behind them.

There’s a guy–

You stumble back, very nearly yelping in surprise. Had there not been a row of bannisters behind you, you’d have thrown yourself straight off the landing.

You clamp your hands over your mouth and freeze up.

The woman perks up at the sudden noise and leans further out. Her hand comes to rest on the bannister – like, like not even a meter from you. She glances down the corridor again and tuts quietly to herself.

“If that is you… you know you’re not allowed in here.”

She shakes her head and turns to head back into the room.

You glance past her. There’s nobody there – just the two kids, sleeping in deafening, cold silence. But you could’ve sworn there was. You could have sworn that there was a guy right there.

And you were sure that he was looking straight at you.

>THREAD 16: END

Thread 17

You are John James Green, and you didn’t choose the homeless mutie life, but the homeless mutie life chose you.

Jesus Christ, you think you just came within spitting distance of a heart attack. You lean back heavily on the aged bannisters that stand watch over the stairwells of Sacred Tree Orphanage, invisible to the naked eye and quite glad of it.

Your enhanced senses burn through your brain, little flash-sparks of faraway sound and strange scents exploding between the folds of your grey matter. Feet tapping downstairs. Sugared porridge. Medical machines chiming ponderously away in the room opposite you. Car doors slamming. Oak, elm, rosewood, wet grass. You could’ve sworn you just saw someone, but you couldn’t for the life of you tell anyone what they looked like, or how tall they were, or what they were wearing. It was almost like they were shadow made up of impressions – something imprinted in the mind rather than the eye.

You groan quietly as the woman watching over the two children in the next room shuts the door. Dammit, why’re your senses playing up so bad? The mishmash of sensory crowding rustles aimlessly through your head before settling as a dull ache at the crown of your skull. You blink. Your vision is a strange, ebbing blue sheet, punctuated with grainy traces of red and violet and yellow. Beyond the door, you can see the vague outlines of the two children and their carer, pulsing and flickering like strange, upright fires.

Abruptly, your vision rights itself and you’re once again seeing in the visible spectrum. Huh.

>Current Funds: $102.50 >Hunger Level: 3

Gimme a Stealth roll.

>DC14 >unsurprisingly, you have a +3 modifier here Rolled 15

>18 >excellent success

You can’t believe you’re doing this, but you honestly see no other way of getting into that room. If only your eyes hadn’t spazzed the fuck out – you’d have been able to just slide in beforehand.

You nudge the door inwards again, trying to simulate a loose hinge or a stray gust of wind or something. It creaks open and you hear an infuriated huff from within. The blonde woman rears up once again, her brow thoroughly vexed, and you swing yourself aside JUST fast enough to avoid a collision as she charges out the door.

“Jesus God Daniel, if that’s you…” You tune her out as she tromps angrily over the landing and slip inside.

Aside from the medical machines standing watch over the two children the room is mostly bare. There’s a chair sitting in one corner, likely for whoever has to watch them, and a set of curtains that you would presume hide a window. There’s certainly nobody else in here.

>[X] Check the kids’ symptoms. Not that you’re any kind of medical guru. >[X] Look around for anything out of place.

You afford the room a cursory glance. There’s not much to look at, really. Four walls, a window, wallpaper, a buncha beds. You do notice, however, that there’s a spot near the corner on one wall where the wallpaper seems to have rotted away… or something.

You furrow your brow and reach out to touch it. What is that? A burn? Some kinda stain seeping through the wood? It could be either, really, but it doesn’t feel wet or really all too crispy. As you run your fingers across the mark, you come a tiny indent, like something used to be set into the wall there. Hmm.

You turn away and quickly check up on the kids. A dormant sense of unease creeps through you as you stand over them – you’re not exactly used to being the powerful figure towering over the helpless. Your experience is generally angled the opposite way.

You check their pulse, finding that it’s mostly even, but their flesh is exceptionally cool to the touch – much, much lower than it should be.

>Perception check >DC13 >+1 modifier Rolled 14

>15 >adequate I guess

As you draw your hand away, something on a boy’s arm catches your eye. Carefully, you reach down and pull the sleeve of his pyjama top back.

What… what is that, exactly?

There are six little marks spread across his forearm, the skin clearly raised in irritation. Bruises? They look like bruises, all dark and plump and vaguely sore. It’s almost like something got tipped on him and splattered outward – there’s one big, dark blotch and five parallel lines streaking over the width of his arm.

You frown and check the other kid. She doesn’t have it on her arms, but the mark is clear and present on her shoulder, arranged in the same little collection of bruises. The hell?

A set of heavy footfalls crumple your train of thought. Sounds like their carer coming back.

>[X] Go find Kevin, tell him you found some shit. >[X] Check out the corridor.

You make yourself scarce, passing the woman on your way back across the landing. As you approach the room Kevin is supposed to be turning upside down, you catch a glimpse of a small body of children being lead across the downstairs corridor, supposedly into one of the other rooms. You guess lunch is over.

You wait till they’ve very definitely passed by before opening the door and treading in.

Kevin is sitting on the bed, surrounded by pamphlets and papers, reading a book set into his lap. He looks up at the door with an almost comically guilty expression, his skinny frame tautening up to bolt. He sits there in silence before hissing out:

“…John? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” You reply.

“Cool, cool.” He sighs in relief. “This woman is crazy religious. She has a Bible on her pillow and like twenty books ABOUT the Bible under her bed. That’s pretty much the only interesting stuff in the room, though. No ghosts.”

He grins and tosses the book aside.

“Yeah…” You begin. “I think I may have found something.”

“Oh? Like, a…” He pauses, the sheer inanity of what he’s about to say probably clotting his words somewhat. “…a ghost?”

“I don’t know.” You admit. “There’s something going on, though.”

“Great.”

Leaving the room, you two head further into the building. You’re not really comfortable with poking around downstairs while all the kids are milling about down there. Maybe later, when everyone’s asleep, but not now.

The corridor is lined by a set of long, Spartan rooms filled with bunk beds. It would seem that each kid gets a bunk, and a dresser, and not much in the way of privacy.

>[X] Look around in normalvision. >[X] Look around in heatvision.

Man, this place is bleak.

You strain your eyes, trying to shift back into the heat-orientated vision you slipped into earlier. It doesn’t come easy, but after a moment of vague, exploratory effort you find your sight shifting into the infrared.

You pad down the hall, glancing across each room in turn. Most of the place is varying shades of blue and green, any warmer shades clinging to the radiators lodged into the corners. As you pass by one of the rooms, a mass of colder, brighter blues catches your attention and for a moment your jaw falls slack.

You tiptoe in. One of the beds is covered – absolutely fucking covered – in the mark on the kids. It’s everywhere. The sheets, the frame, the pillow… it’s even etched across the wall beside it, not in marker or crayon or any kind of stain, but in selectively cold spots.

You shake your head, banishing your thermal vision. To the naked eye, the place looks totally normal.

You resolve to take a look around with your mundane senses.

>Roll Investigation >DC16 >+4 modifier Rolled 10 + 4

>not good enough boy >you get sensory information but not investigative info

You root around, searching for any physical indicator of what the shit is going on, passing from room to room to room, but you discover nothing with your normal senses.

On a whim, you occasionally shift into the infrared, confirming that there is a second bed in the same state as the other. It doesn’t take any particular feats of mental gymnastics to conjure up a vague idea of whom they would generally house.

Interestingly, you also find the mark in one, isolated incidence upon the wall behind a third bed. Which doesn’t exactly fill you with much hope for the future.

Returning to Kevin, you abstain from relating what you’ve found immediately, instead informing him that you’ve checked the rooms pretty thoroughly.

>[X] Tell him what you found.

“Hey, Kevin…?”

“Yeah?” He responds, no longer making an attempt at approximating eye contact with you.

You’re not sure how much of this makes sense. Maybe it’ll come together when you pass it along to someone else. Maybe it’s something totally mundane that you’ve overlooked, like… a really bad flu, or something. That leaves freaky cold sweat marks everywhere. Yeah.

“What would you say if I told you there are all these, um…” How best to describe it?” “…kinda cold areas sorta just dotted around the place?”

He glares at thin air.

“You mean cold spots? You’ve found cold spots all over the place?”

“Yeah…”

“Well. I guess that’s not creepy at all.”

You watch him glance from door to door. Yeah, if you put a dog next to him, he’d be a spitting Shaggy.

>[X] Go downstairs. >[X] Write in.

You head to the stairs, reaching out with your senses. There’s nobody else on the top floor now, just you and Kevin – and, you guess, the two sleeping kids, though they barely make any kind of impression on your radar. You hear occasionally-spoiled silence downstairs – the occasional yelp, the occasional raised voice. Probably classes of some kind.

“So, uh… are you, like, religious?” Says Kevin, in hushed town. You frown invisibly. “I mean, do you believe in…”

“G-g-g-ghosts?” You Scoobify your voice as much as possible, chuckling a little. Apparently Kevin is just about aware enough of your position to nudge you playfully.

“Dude. But yeah, I guess so.”

You think back. God has been sort of a non-issue for the last few years.

“I dunno.” You conclude on, rather lamely. “My family was mostly Catholic, but we were pretty casual about it. I guess I’m supposed to believe in Purgatory or something, maybe. What about you?”

He shrugs.

“Never really given it much thought. My dad was Christian, but he never really… I’ve never read the Bible or anything.”

You progress down the stairs in silence. There’s no longer any noise emanating from the doorway to the right, which tells you that lunch is indeed through with. The large oak doors parallel to it is shut tight.

You could probably leave via the front from here.

>[X] Leave. >[X] Write in.

You haven’t exactly scoped the whole place out, but you know something’s up. You can return later tonight, when everyone’s all tucked into bed.

“So, uh, this whole conversation kind of got me thinking…” You begin, glancing at Kevin.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You sigh. It’s not like he was being particularly subtle about it. Afterlife this, spiritual that, ghosts religion etc. “Look, I know what it’s like to lose someone, if you need to talk about it.”

A moment of awkward silence passes while he looks not-quite-at-you. Eventually, he smiles.

“Talking to you about this kind of stuff while you’re invisible is… really, really weird.”

“…Sorry.”

Edging open the front door, you leave in silence, Kevin casting a quick glance backward to make sure that nobody sees you go. From the outside, you just look like a pair of scrawny, dirty grunge teens, so you drop your invisibility. Which is a relief, honestly, because you’ve been holding it for quite some time and aren’t particularly up for a repeat of the last time you tried to really push it to the limit.

You glance around, and almost immediately spot the gang hanging around a little down the street, being all inconspicuous and stuff.

>[X] Tell everyone what’s up.

You approach the group and join them in their being of the inconspicuous. Which seems to mostly involve standing in a sort of semi-circle and not saying much. Laura says something to Noriko as you get close, and she glances around before fixing her eyes on you. Caught your scent, you guess.

“So…?” Asks Noriko, smiling broadly. You notice that the SUV parked beside them has a slight radio problem, in that its radio has totally melted all over the place.

You and Kevin glance at each other.

“Err… there is definitely some weird shit going on in there.”

“I told you so.” Injects Layla, her tone pretty much as grating and pointed as you’d expected.

Noriko widens her eyes.

“What, really? Like… ghost stuff?”

“I… I don’t really know.” You admit.

Between you and Kevin, a good enough sequence of events is painted out for them, prompting a few ‘ooh’s and ‘aaah’s, primarily from Noriko. Once it’s all sunk in, Laura speaks up, staring at you from the back of the group.

“If you don’t know what is happening, what do you think is happening?”

>[ ] INSERT THEORY.

>what does JJ think of this shit?

You scratch the back of your head.

“I dunno… I was thinking it was a telepath at first, but those cold spots were very real.”

“Telepathy is often accompanied by telekinesis.” Notes Laura. “A skilled telekinetic could be capable of altering temperature.”

“Okay. Maybe it’s the kids, then? Maybe they… double up or something?” You turn to Layla. “Those two I saw back there, are they related?”

She shakes her head.

“When I was there, it was just one. He’s called Alex. I don’t think he has a sister or nothing.” She squirms a little and rubs her arms, glancing back over her shoulder at the building. “He was in the same room as me. The face in the dark used to look straight at him at night. Then one day he just didn’t wake up.”

Well, that’s… exceptionally fucking eerie. Still, whatever this thing is seems to have started with this kid, and spread out from there.

“Maybe…” Noriko speaks up, looking at the floor and kind of flinching slightly, as if she’s saying something vaguely obscene. “Maybe he’s just awakened as a mutant, and he can, like, walk out of his body or something? Maybe he was looking at himself? He could be stuck out there, trying to get people to notice him.”

“Good idea, Noriko.”

Seriously. You don’t think you’d have thought of that. You’re pretty sure there’s a name for whatever she’s talking about, too, but… it doesn’t quite spring to mind. Eldritch emanation? Arcane projection? Something projection.

There is one problem, however.

“It doesn’t account for the second kid, though.”

“Well, then…” She’s raised her voice a little now. “Maybe he dragged her out? You said those marks were like, four lines”–

“Five lines.” You correct.

“Okay, five lines, and then a big blotch? Kinda like this?” She traces a vague image into the air. It’s actually… surprisingly accurate, kinda. Like, she’s sorta getting the right shape.

“Yeah. You’re… really close, actually. How’d you guess?”

“John…” She smiles a little nervously. “I just drew out a handprint.”

You feel your eyes widen in surprise. Beside you, Layla fidgets uncomfortably.

How? How the hell did you miss that?

“…Well, they’ve apparently go some kind of experts turning up later. And I think I want to be here when that happens.”

>THREAD 17: END

Thread 18

You are John James Green, mutant vagrant.

You’re standing a short walk from the imposing shadow of Sacred Tree Orphanage, some kind of Georgian throwback from the ye times of stuff you didn’t really cover in history due to being a drop out loser hobo. Apparently it’s also haunted.

After looking around a bit and encountering comatose children, a spree of haphazard cold spots, and strange markings that Noriko handily identified as handprints, you’ve determined that Something is Up. Current theories include a lost, astral-projecting mutant or some kind of creepy vampire-like superhuman feeding on the energies of the helpless kids roomed in the orphanage.

“…Well, they’ve apparently go some kind of experts turning up later.” You note to the rest of the gang, who are standing around on the side walk, passing through the various stages of inconspicuousness. “And I think I want to be here when that happens.”

You really have no idea what kind of experts you’re talking here – could be something totally mundane. But you’d like to find out, and that means being here in just over an hour’s time.

>Current Funds: $102.50 >Hunger Level: 4 >Karma Points: 1

>[X] Stay at the orphanage while the others go pick up some supplies. >[X] Write in

You glance at your watch. 1:55. If you recall correctly, those ‘experts’ were supposed to be arriving at three. So you have a little over an hour.

“I’d better stick around for a while. Noriko, Kev, would you guys mind picking up a few supplies? We’re running low on fuel. Food, too.”

They glance at each other and shrug.

“Yeah, I guess.” Answers Noriko.

You give them a quick-rundown of the high-energy low-effort hobo recipes you’ve picked up over the years (you’re sure they wouldn’t do much to impress that sweary British TV chef guy, but you’re pretty proud of them), and send them off with $40.

“And us?” Asks Laura.

“Well, I was just gonna keep watch.” You look down at Layla and smile. “There’s a few things I’d like to know, too, from our inside source. Come on, we don’t have to stand next to this creepy old dump.”

To be fair, Sacred Tree isn’t the only creepy building on the street. It’s the only old one, but this is Queens, and on top of that it’s a hop and a skip from the long stretch of blasted ruins you’ve made a home in. When the children of Sacred Tree look out of the window at night, they see a whole cluster of barren, abandoned houses on the opposite side of the street – probably a whole heap more fuel for the whole ‘ghost’ idea. You guess nobody wants to live right next to the scar. Or maybe it’s still vaguely irradiated or something?

Jeez, you hope not.

As the three of you sidle up to one of the abandoned houses, you turn to Layla and rattle of something that’s been on your mind for a while.

“So, when I was in here, this girl kept thinking I was a Daniel. You know, whenever I moved something or whatever. Who would that be?”

Layla looks up at you with raised eyebrows.

“Daniel? Daniel’s just a kid. He’s like a year younger than me. Kind of an ass clown.”

Oh. Hah, you were kind of expecting a little more than that.

“We should ascend one of these buildings.” Laura notes. “They offer an excellent view.”

“Oh, uh, sure.”

The house in front of you is a pretty standard two-floor deal. Probably an attic too. The door is thoroughly boarded, but there’s a fire escape – a rickety, skewered fire escape that clearly sees little use.

>[ ] Try the fire escape.

You approach the fire escape at an apprehensive gait. It’s rusty, it’s old, and you’re really not sure how much weight it can support. Not that you’re really demanding much of it. You’re a malnourished hobo, Layla’s a kid, and Laura is a tiny person (seriously, what is she, 5’1”?).

You give it an experimental rattle. It shifts, but stays bolted – just about – to the brickwork. Should work.

Laura bounds up in a single, fluid motion, leaving Layla to stare at you like you’ve slighted her somehow.

“I can’t reach that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Duh. “I can, though.”

She recoils slightly as you move to pick her up, and you shoot her a critical look. For all her bluster, she’s not exactly all the ass-kicking braveheart she seems to hold up as her self-image. After a moment of silence, she lets you heft her up and lift her to the ladder, grabbing hold of it.

A moment passes. And then another moment. Eventually, you speak up.

“Uh, Layla, you have to pull yourself up.”

“I am!” She responds, angrily, coming dangerously close to putting a heel in your eye. “You need to let go!”

“I have let go.” You say, bemusedly. Damn her arms are small and all but is she really that wea–

You try to pull your hands away, and are surprised to find that you can’t. Huh. You’re pretty much stuck fast to that Flanderesque sweater top of hers.

>Roll to unfuck your powers >DC13 Rolled 16

>16 >success

You can’t believe this shit. It’s happening again. Hell, is it getting faster? It seems like this stuff is just… mounting up. Like kindling. You can’t help but feel the vaguely like you’re accelerating to breakneck pace, and if you try to break, you’re gonna break real fucking hard.

You tug a little harder. Layla helps and – and you swear, she actually tried to kick you that time.

“Are you retarded? Let go!”

“I’m… I’m stuck!”

You shut your eyes. That always seems to help. You close up your senses, focusing only on your hands. You feel the cold prickling at the strange, smooth scales that smatter their way up your fingers. You feel your palms tingling, the wool tickling, body heat soothing, tiny particles of sweat trickling. Abruptly, you come unstuck.

Layla scrabbles her way up, helped by Laura, who is staring down at you were a concerned expression.

You stare at your hands. Why do you feel like there’s static darting through them? How did you…

>[X] Try wallclimbing!

Tentatively, you place one palm against the brickwork and concentrate. You pull away and – you don’t, your palm remains fixed in place. Hah.

You try with your other, and then attempt pulling away, alternating your fingerless grip upon the wall between hands, getting the hang of the exact feeling you have to draw out to keep yourself attached. Haha.

One palm after the other, you slowly ascend, a grin beginning to tug back your lips. After a moment you realize it works with your feet, too – even through your shoes. How the hell is that possible? Do you have, like, super long spines going through your boots (and your gloves?). You don’t think you do. What the hell, man?

Hahaha.

You soon find yourself sticking to the wall parallel Layla and Laura.

Hahahaha!

“This is great! I’m like Spider-Man or some shit!”

“Yes.” Notes Laura, still wearing an expression of muted concern. “You are.”

>[X] Go to the roof.

“Only less annoying and potentially unstable.” You add.

Way to piss on your own bonfire, JJ.

You make your way up the roof. You go a little slower than you probably could – uncharted waters an’ all – and the others make it up there just a little before you. You swing over the modest eave and glance across the street, where Sacred Tree sits like a squat, ungainly shadow. Yep, you’ve got a pretty much perfect bird’s-eye of the place.

The skyline around you is shifting from the dull, cold grey of winter into the early reds. It’ll be getting dark soon enough.

Laura sits down beside you, Layla having immediately disentangled from her and shrunk down to huddle at the edge facing away from the orphanage.

You jump a little when you feel the warmth of Laura’s touch winding around your fingers, looking down at her. She seems to be studying your palms for marks or whatever. Probably a good idea.

>[X] Write in.

You just sit there for the moment. You’re pretty certain that this is an entirely scientific kind of touch, but it’s not exactly uncomfortable.

Her fingertips leave tiny beads of warmth along your palms, tracing their way down your digits with deliberate, experimental slowness. Occasionally she presses a point somewhere – at the centre of your palm, below your thumb, under your index finger, as if searching for something.

“No spines or hooks.” She says, suddenly. Yikes, you should hope so. “No abnormal indentions or patterns either. Aside from”–

“The scales?”

She nods. You shift a little uncomfortably – you’ve always sort of wondered how your hands feel to other people. Compared to normalcy.

“Do you think I’ll ever stop mutating?”

She looks up into your eyes.

“You should.” She states, at length. “Perhaps you are simply responding to stress. Perhaps you’ve never fully activated your x-gene until now, and it is responding to the pressures of your situation. When you… left your home, what did you want more than anything else?”

You stare back into her bright greens. The answer is a dull thud in the back of your brain, a black fire, cold and searing and impossible.

“I wanted to hide, from everything.”

She sets your hand down.

You watch the sky shift subtly overhead.

“What… uh, what do think my mutation actually is, now that you’ve had some time to observe it?”

You can’t help it. You’re curious. It’s not like you’ve ever had anyone practiced at identifying this stuff on tap.

“I think…” She pauses, looking down at your hand again. “I thought you may possess the ability to adapt to new stimuli, but such mutations are generally temporary. I’m beginning to think that your x-gene simply hasn’t… settled. It’s not uncommon for mutants to first manifest their abilities in moments of extreme stress, and nor is it uncommon for these abilities to reflect the unique pressures they have come up against.”

You’re not exactly sure you understand. Well, you get the whole… gist of it… but…

“I believe that, for some reason, your process of genetic awakening is still on-going, and refusing to resolve into a single combination.”

“…I see.”

So… her theory is that your x-gene is, what, overactive? Always switched on? Always under stress? You’re not sure you entirely like the implications of that.

“Hey, uh, Layla.” She’s been staring at you both for a while. It’s kinda awkward, actually. So you might as well bring her in and change the subject at the same time. “Did your… ghost… ever say anything?”

She rubs her arms – again – and looks down.

“I… I don’t think so. I tried not to look at it. We all did. It sort of, it kind of moved its lips… but there wasn’t any sound.” She quietens, before popping up a little, her eyes widening. “Anne said it spoke to her. But she’s such a liar.”

>[X] “What did she say it said?”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” You state. “What did she say it said?”

You think she actually blushes a little, and maybe sort of smiles. She’s still rubbing her arms, though, just very slightly.

“It’s really stupid…” She leans back against the edge, staring up that the darkening sky. “This was a while after it started doing it’s… its thing. It mostly just stared at Alex then, though kids in Saracens – those are our dorm rooms, they have these stupid names – say it was looking at Claire too…”

She shifts about a little, biting her lip.

“Um, one night Anne got up. She does this sleep walking thing sometimes. Anyway, she got up, and tried to get through the door, which woke most of us up too. So she keeps just pushing herself at the door like a total ‘tard, and then it just opens.”

She stops for a moment.

“And it was there, looking down at her. The next day she said it whispered in her air, that it said – this is really stupid – ‘magic number’.”

>[X] Huh. Wait and watch.

Magic number. Magic… magic number.

“Huh.”

You spend the rest of the hour mostly just watching the evening dwindle. There’s no activity and the front doors to the orphanage for quite some time – eventually, the hour slips by, dawdling off by ten minutes, then by twenty, by thirty… until, eventually, a low, expensive-looking pulls up nearby, disgorging a man in his late forties.

You perk up as he turns in toward the building, striding his way to the door. He’s… well, you can’t say all that much about him, really, other than that he’s old and one of those stick-like, pencil-y people that always seem a little taller than they are. Well dressed, kinda.

“Looks like we have our specialist.”

You glance at your watch. 3:39. You want to see this, but you were hoping to stick around and do a bit of digging after nightfall, when everyone is tucked away in bed. You could hop in an’ out, but you’re honestly not sure how many hours of invisibility you can safely squeeze into a day.

>[X] Go down and check it out.

“I’m gonna get a closer look. Just in and out, hopefully.”

Laura nods.

You… well, you Spider-Man your way down the side of the building. It’s faster than braving that ridiculous fire escape and certainly quieter than busting out through the door like the fucking mutie version of the Kool Aid Man, so why not?

Once you’re down there, you head to the edge of the road, getting a good angle on the orphanage entrance. The guy’s still there – you think he just rang the bell, or knocked, or something, and it occurs to you that rather than going round the back, you could just fade out and trail right behind him.

>Stealth Check >DC15 >+3 modifier for obvious reasons Rolled 15

>18 >great success

You fade out and sidle up behind the guy, practically taking position in his shadow.

He smells sterile and cold. Rubber, metal, air freshener. Aftershave. Age. He’s probably on the verge of crossing over into his fifties, judging by the look of him, but has retained a head of dark, neatly-trimmed air, steadily greying around the back. His suit tells you probably makes more money than most of your extended family combined (and your mother’s side was certainly not of insufficient means).

The door opens and the older woman you saw earlier smiles out at him. He smiles back, obligatorily. She probably doesn’t notice just how little of him was in that – you’ve found that the observer’s seat gives you so much more time to appreciate what people are really saying.

“Hi.” They shake hands. “You must be Doctor Ross?”

“That I am.” He confirms, his voice deep and gravelly. You pick up a hint of tobacco.

“Come in, come in. Did you have an enjoyable trip?”

They’re mostly just exchanging pleasantries for now, it seems. And it appears that the guy is a doctor, not a… whatever else you thought he might’ve been.

He steps over the threshold.

>[X] Follow.

Well, you could do with hearing a medical opinion on what’s going on. You’re pretty sure that whatever’s up has more to do with the mind than the body, but… could be, like, a neurosurgeon or something. Or the neurosurgeon equivalent for non-surgeons. Someone who knows about brains.

The step across the threshold in his shadow, ducking a little to the side as the woman – she must be the owner, or the head person, or something – shuts the door behind her guest.

They proceed up the stairs and you follow shortly behind, relying on your senses to keep you in on what they’re discussing.

“So, there are two patients now?”

“Yes, first it was Alex, two weeks ago. The hospital told us it’d just be a matter of time – that there were a number of treatments we could try…”

“And now this second one? Claire, correct?”

She nods.

They make their way to the off-limits room that serves as the slumbering children’s sanctuary. You don’t bother following them in – you can hear just fine through the door.

“You’ve had the place looked over for material causes?”

“Yes, yes, we had some people come in and search the place for toxins as soon as Alex went under. They didn’t turn anything up. We’re… we’re at wit’s end, and our local hospital seems to barely understand what’s happening. We were told you were one of the leaders in your field, so…”

The doctor sighs throatily.

“Well, you were told right.” Jeez. “Let me take a look.”

You stand at the door for a good few minutes, listening in on a series of slight, vague sounds, often punctuated by a gravelly “hmm” or “ahhh”. Eventually, he sighs once again, and you hear his weight shift significantly.

“Full brain activity, yet unresponsive. Something like this would generally be the cause of some stress or trauma, but clearly that’s not the case. Which leaves only material causes. Miss Sinclair, I would very much advise that you have the building tested for airbornes again”–

“But we’ve already”–

“Miss Sinclair, coincidences like this do not happen. Something must have been missed. I’d schedule a check as soon as possible. Frankly, it’s a wonder that there haven’t been further incidents. Most substances capable of causing such reactions can have narcotic or even hallucinogenic effects, too.”

Huh.

>THREAD 18: END

Thread 19

You are John ecided to wait around at Sacred Tree Orphanage to observe a professional opinion on whatever the hell is going on, following some kind of doctor guy inside and listening in on his conversation. He appears to have told you – unknowingly, of course – that much of the frankly kinda crazy shit you’ve seen so far could very well be the result of airborne hallucinogens emanating from some unknown source within the building.

Could that really be the truth of the matter? Was Layla just tripping balls? Were YOU just tripping balls? Or is there still a case for psychic shenanigans?

Also, where the hell are Noriko and Kevin?

As you dawdle on the landing and consider what you’ve just overheard, you hear footsteps on the other side of the door approaching. Looks like he’s leaving already.

>[ ] Stick around a bit, see if anything comes up. >[ ] Follow him out. >[ ] Write in.

The step aside as the doctor makes his way out, wearing the grey, sloped face of someone whose time has just been wasted. The teacher or owner or whoever follows sullenly in his footsteps, and you trace over hers.

There’s little more this guy can tell you, it seems – if the place really is just pumped full of radical gases then that’s that. If not, it’s likely something that exceeds his experience.

He’s let out and you slip around behind him, bracing yourself against the winter chill.

The doctor is already striding off toward his car when the door slams shut behind you.

>[X] Regroup with Laura and Layla

You part ways with the grumpy old creature, materializing out of the air once you’re over the road and sure there’s no curious eyes waiting around to snapshot you.

You sidle around the building chosen as your impromptu little lookout and get those sticky palms flexing again. You’re still taking it slow, but getting yourself to stick and unstick is already becoming reflexive, and you drag your way up the wall even quicker than last time.

Pulling yourself over the eaves, you’re met immediately by Layla’s irritable stare. Laura sits a few diplomatic paces from her, watching the building. She fixes her eyes on you as you heave yourself onto the roof, staring expectantly.

>[X] “According to the doctor guy – he was a doctor, by the way – the building just has a gas problem.” >[X] Write in.

“According to the doctor guy – he was a doctor, by the way – the building just has a gas problem.” That said, though… “But I’d take that with a grain of salt. You’d have smelled something, right, Laura? And me too?”

Laura cocks her head to the side, her stare remaining in place. You can’t help but notice that she tends to look at people’s mouths, rather than their eyes, when conversing. It’s kinda weird.

“There are twelve odourless gases that, when combined with the right catalyst, can act as hallucinogens. Two with the potential to be lethal.”

Okay. You did not know that.

“You’re just a fount of depressing knowledge, aren’t you?” Mocks Layla, eying her peripherally.

“Well, er, whatever the case…” Did things get tense up here or what? “…I’m heading back in there later…”

>[X] Ask Laura if she can catch their scents. >[X] Ask Layla what her problem with Laura is.

You decide to keep quiet about the palpable corona of tension that buzzes around the two girls, just for the moment, and instead focus on the other set of problem children that you’ve been forced by life to deal with. In hindsight, it may not have been the best idea to send the recovering drug addicts off foraging for food. And give them money, too! If you weren’t a little bit afraid of getting your hand stuck to your face, you’d be slapping yourself silly right now.

“So… looks like the others aren’t back…”

That was sort of meant to start a conversation, but nobody follows the trails you’ve laid, and they flitter off awkwardly into nothingness. You clear your throat loudly.

“Uh, Laura, can you catch their scent? They might’ve gotten into some kind of trouble…”

She nods and rises to her feet, making her way over to the fire escape. You shift your weight to follow but stop when she puts her hand up, indicating a wordless but clear intent to go alone.

“You should stay here with Layla.”

Uh…

“Okay…”

Without a second glance, she steps down off the roof and out of sight, leaving you and Layla alone. Right, then.

You sit in silence for a moment, before turning toward her.

“Hey, what’s your problem with Laura, anyhow?”

Were it possible for her eyes to spit at you, they’d have done so. It may have been mildly acidic, too, or perhaps flammable at room temperature.

“I don’t have a particular problem with her.”

>[X] “Whatever. I guess you expect me to believe that you’re actually twelve, too, despite no twelve-year- old in history having ever uttered the words ‘fount of depressing knowledge’?”

“Whatever.” Well, you guess that’s fair. You’re not buying it in the least but you’ve no right to press further. Even after feeding her, and giving her a place to stay, and taking some time out of your busy schedule to – “I guess you expect me to believe that you’re actually twelve, too, despite no twelve-year- old in history having ever uttered the words ‘fount of depressing knowledge’?”

The fixes you with another toxic stare. Unfortunately for her she is a tiny person and not really all that intimidating at all. You shrug off her attempt to knife you with her eyes for a few moments before she finally gives up and heaves out a long, exasperated sigh.

“Fine.” She leans forward, tucking her legs in and rubbing her arms intermittently. “I’m thirteen. But thirteen is technically a teen so it’s not as great for sympathy.”

Hah. How adorably Machiavellian (yes, you know who Machiavelli was, surprise surprise).

>[X] “So, why’re you so eager to throw in with a bunch of hobos? If ghosts are the problem, I’m pretty sure there’s an Avengers hotline. Captain America is probably much better at this than I am.” >[X] “Right. And the problem with Laura is…?”

“Why are you doing this, though?” You’re raising one eyebrow so high, it’s liable to fly off your head. Why extra sympathy? With hobos of all people. “I mean, why’re you so eager to throw in with a bunch of hobos? If ghosts are the problem, I’m pretty sure there’s an Avengers hotline. Captain America is probably much better at this than I am.”

She frowns at you, alternating her grip on her arms somewhat. Is that something she does when she’s nervous, or is she just cold? She seems like she’s always rubbing them.

“Firstly, I know there’s an Avengers hotline. I’ve been ringing it since I was eight. It’s just a machine on the other end. I’m pretty sure the world has to be ending for them to actually answer.”

Fair point. You’re pretty sure you used to do that when you were young(er), too.

“Secondly, the Avengers are total losers. Except for Wonder Man.”

Really? Wonder Man? Everyone knows he’s only there because Thor got pissed at–

“Thirdly, I’m not ‘throwing in’ with you guys. We’re neighbours. I live next door.”

You shift uncomfortably. You’d note that she’s stayed pretty much at your place so far, and that the apartment she’s claimed as her own has been a crater for some time, but, somehow, you don’t imagine that would go down particularly well.

“Alright.” You can let all that fly. “What’s the trouble with Laura, then?”

She screws up her face at you.

“She’s a giant buttface.” That’s… kinda harsh. And she’s definitely not a giant anything, she’s totally tiny. “She’s what, two years older than me, but she treats me like a child, and she doesn’t believe anything I say, and she thinks you should’ve just taken me back to that shithole. She says I’m causing you to needlessly expose yourselves, whatever that means.”

>[X] “In all fairness…” >[X] “Laura’s just looking out for me...” >[X] “She’s kind of right…” >[X] Write in.

“In all fairness, you did say you were a year younger than you are so that we’d see you as a child…”

You can’t help but grin a little, even as she ups the acidity of her gaze to dangerous levels. It takes a great deal of self-cajoling to tone it back.

“…And Laura’s just looking out for me. Probably you too.” You pause, Laura’s inscrutable stare materializing before your mind’s eye, and add: “I think. Look, ghosts are… kind of tough to swallow. The problems Laura and I deal with are always, always people.”

The fire crackles in the air. You sail over the lake into oblivion. The M is fresh and hot on your shoulder, smoke coiling from seared flesh.

“Believe me, people can be way worse than ghosts. People are the worst things in the world when they put their minds to it. And there are a few particularly nasty ones that don’t like us, alright?”

She stops rubbing her arms for a moment, scrunching up like an armadillo, her chin resting on her knees. A flat, disgruntled expression hangs across her face, as if she’s mad at not being entirely mad. She starts squeezing her arms again soon enough, though, her brow furrowing inward.

“I knew you’d take her side.” Whaaat. “Did you guys rob a bank together or something? Are you dicking her yet?”

You spit out your non-existent drink.

>[X] Almost all.

Okay, that was totally out-of-bounds. It wasn’t even in the right country, let alone the right state or the right pitch or the right PART of the pitch. God damn. You strain to retain a civil face. She’s just a kid. She’s just a kid.

“Language, kid.”

She huffs out a big ole’ lungful of teenage disregard. Urgh.

“We’re not together. And would we really be here if we’d robbed a bank?”

“You could be hiding out.” She speculates, grinning faintly. “You could've buried the money somewhere to wait till the heat dies down. Then it’s off to Mexico!”

This time you’re the one furrowing your brow.

“You have a pretty overactive imagination.” You sigh heavily. “Getting out of the state would require dodging the Sentinels, anyhow. If they catch us it’s off to the camps. You get that that’s part of why we’ve gotta keep a low profile, right?”

Sort of, anyhow. The camps are mostly for ‘insurgents’, but the authorities have managed to stretch the definition pretty damn far. Shit, you’re not even registered, and you can’t pay the associated fine, so…

“Yeah, I get it…”

For a moment she just sits there in silence, rubbing her arms.

“I wish I was a mutant…”

>[X] “You really don’t.” >[X] Write in.

You can’t help but treat her to a look of total disdain. Just for a second, before you realize what you’re doing. You’re sure she caught, it though.

“You really don’t.”

“Whatever.” She looks up from her arms. “You can’t tell me”–

“I did too, once. Look where I am now. Look at”– You tug on frayed hem of your second-hand hoodie – “this shit. I can’t look anyone in the eye. I live in piss and crap and junk. Every other person in the country wants to kill me or ship me off to an island or is afraid that I’ll drop a fucking meteor city on them.”

Yeah, thanks for that, Magneto. What a great idea that was.

She tightens her grip on her arms, rubbing up and down in silence for a moment. Her eyes stare off the roof, through the sky, lackadaisically empty.

“I know it’s stupid.” She says, finally. “I know about the camps. But… after everything burned… it was all I could think about, for days. I wanted to be a mutant so badly. I didn’t talk to anyone or pay attention in those stupid classes or listen to their dumb psychiatrist guy… I just thought about one day discovering that I could, like, bring people back. From death.”

Her knuckles whiten around her arms. She stares as if into a fixed point in time and space.

“That’s what I’d want my mutant power to be. I used to dream about it, for nights on end. There are mutants that can throw asteroids around, right? There are mutants that can bend time? So why can’t there be one that can bring back the dead?”

There’s a strange sense of certainty in her voice, like her shaky-at-best logic is actually ironclad. Like this could come true a minute from now, a day from now, a month from now.

“In my dreams that mutant was me, and I’d… I’d bring everyone back.”

Okay. Right.

>[X] “Chances are you’d get a third eye that shoots butterflies, or something.” >[X] “…Look, I know what it’s like to lose family, but you can’t just bring people back…” >[X] Write in.

“There isn’t a single person in the whole world that doesn’t wish that, Layla.”

You remember that when you were a kid, you wanted to fly. That was the coolest mutant power, obviously. Flying could take you anywhere. All the coolest superheroes fly. Thor, Captain Marvel, Human Torch (Jim Hammond, not the Storm guy)… even the fake ones in comics, like Superman. As far as unrealistically optimistic power-fantasies go, however, you’d say that Layla outdoes you by several leagues.

Which is kinda understandable. When you first realized you could turn invisible, you rather distinctly remember wishing that it was something different, something that would let you take out all your anger and bile on anyone who so much as looked at you funny. Back then you wanted someone – anyone – to pay so badly. Now… now you’re just tired.

“I know what it’s like to lose family, Layla, but you can’t just sit there and hope that one day they just pop back. That’s not how these things work.” At least, not for mere mortals like yourselves. How many times has Cap ‘died’ now? And Iron Man? Shit, you’re pretty sure there was a whole big thing about The Human Torch (the Storm guy, not Jim Hammond) being dead for a while. “If you go full mutant tomorrow, you’d probably just sprout a third eye that, like, shoots butterflies or something.”

“I know.” She answers, quietly, rubbing her arms again. “I know. But I still wish it would happen. I just wish things were different. I don’t even care about the hate. I’d give anything for things to just be different.”

>[X] Me too.

“Me too.”

Different would be good, yeah. Different could be worse, but much worse, really? You’ve got your shitty job and these guys and stuff now, but sometimes you think you’re kidding yourself with all of it. How long can this really go on? How long can you hand out papers on a sidewalk for $60? How long can you keep Creeper at bay? How long can you dodge Laura’s pursuers? How long can you keep saying “no” to a shot of Jack? Keep one step ahead of winter? Keep fed? Keep well? Keep alive?

Do you keep this up till you’re twenty? Till you’re thirty? Till you’re sixty and bearded and can barely stand the cold, and the boys from Mutant Control take you off the streets?

You wish pretty fuckin’ bad that things were different.

You stretch out your hand in offering of a truce. Layla stares at it for a moment, before grudgingly knotting her fingers between yours.

Time passes. The sky deepens, orange turning to red, grey to darkest blue. The clouds overhead all but disappear and snow becomes a pale, silvery corona, embalming the city in a light like stars and milk. It makes you think of a patient, still and thoroughly stupefied, lying prone upon an operating table.

Eventually, you hear the fire escape rattle, and Laura – followed by Noriko and then by Kevin – pulls herself onto the roof.

They look terrible. Kevin is sporting a huge, swollen bulge in the place of his eye and appears to have been cut across his cheek. Noriko’s knees and elbows are scraped pretty bad and she’s holding her arm tight to her chest.

>[X] “Holy fuck, what happened?”

“Holy fuck, what happened!?”

Christ, you hope it wasn’t drugs. You really hope it wasn’t drugs. You’d like to think you trust these guys, but god damn, if it was a drugs thing you might explode or something.

“They were involved in an altercation.” States Laura, setting down a small plastic bag – groceries, you guess? – and standing aside. For good reason, it seems. Noriko’s hair is flashing with tiny arcs of static electricity, and her flesh occasionally glows from within, streaks of neon blue flashing under her skin.

Layla gets up and moves toward her, but is stopped in her tracks by a warning hand.

“No, not…” She flinches when she speaks. “Not a good time to be touching me.”

Kevin sits down, pressing a clump of snow to his eye.

“Noriko blew out some guy’s electrics.” She stares at him pointedly. “Uh, by mistake, of course. We were just leaving this 7-Eleven and then, I dunno, what happened?”

“I just got startled.” She says. “But I guess I’d been absorbing too much, ‘cause it arced out and cut all the lights. Then the owner started screaming at us and these guys outside came into check up on all the fuss…”

“He screamed that she was a mutant and one of them went total fucking ape on Noriko. Knocked her down. When I got in the way he tried to punch me in the face, and… well… I didn’t have time to hold it back…”

Oh. Oh no…

“He’s probably never gonna be playing violin or whatever, you know? After that everything’s a bit… weird for me. I guess because some guy hit me with a pipe or something.”

“It was a bike pump, I think.” Interjects Noriko.

“Oh, okay. I couldn’t really see it so good, due to, y’know…” He indicates toward his horribly bruised eye. “I guess they did some kicking and stuff and then Noriko was picking me up…”

“Yeah, I kind of set some clothes on fire so they’d back up. It worked pretty good till a bunch of ‘em chased us down." She flinches her way through about half of a smile, easing herself down a fair distance from the rest of the group. "I think they winged me with a padlock or something, something metal, and I scraped up my arms on the pavement.”

“I think they’d have killed us if Laura hadn’t gotten there.” Notes Kevin, grimly.

“Yeah. Or I’d have exploded or something.”

>[X] “Shit, how bad are you hurt?” >[X] “Uh, how did Laura get rid of them?”

“Shit.”

Shit, those assholes. You hope Kevin dusted that guy’s whole hand. This is exactly why Layla should be careful what she wishes for.

“How bad is the hurt?”

Kevin shrugs.

“My eye really hurts. Like, a lot. I can stand I guess.”

Noriko has closed her eyes and is breathing in slow, steady lengths, periodically discharging jolt after jolt of bright blue electricity from her fingertips.

“I feel like one bigass bruise.”

So nothing’s broken, then? At least there’s that.

You turn to Laura.

“How’d you get rid of them?”

She answers immediately, and in great detail:

“Only two of the assailants were armed, so little force was required. Three were disabled via shattering strikes to the femur. Two were rendered unconscious, both by repeated blunt trauma to the head. One assailant possessed a firearm, and as such it was necessary to quickly disarm him”– ohgod you hope she isn’t using that term literally – “by severing his trigger finger and roughly 40% of his hand.”

“Yeah that was pretty intense.” Notes Kevin.

>[X] Laura should get the others home. You’ll stay to check out the orphanage.

Dammit. You stop to think, to breathe. This is just… perfect. This is just one more thing. One more thing Creeper can use – can and will – when he gets wind of it. And he will get wind of it. It’ll be in the papers by tomorrow, and someone will be blabbing about a mutant that turns stuff to dust and another that blows shit up with electricity.

And… and probably one with claws, too.

Shit.

“Hide.” You mutter. “It’s time to go home. For you guys, anyway.”

Hide, hide. The JJ solution. Hide from life, hide from loss, hide. You know when to hide. It’s pretty much entirely pathetic, but hiding is your whole thing.

“Laura, can you get these guys home? I’m sticking around to check out the orphanage.”

She nods, scooping the grocery bag back up.

Now, what else to add before you part ways for a short while?

>[X] “Don’t leave the apartment.” >[X] “Good idea to start looking for a new burrow.”

“Don’t leave the apartment, no matter what. Don’t go out for food, don’t go out for anything. Just sit tight for a while.”

Some might call you paranoid. But, the thing is, you know they’re all out to get you. They’re out to get you because you have some helix with an X on it. They’re out to get you because you have scaly hands and weird eyes. And now they’re out to get you because your friend cut some dude’s hand off. And even if he deserved it, they’re still coming for you.

“Laura.” She stops halfway down the fire escape, glancing up at you. “It might be a good time to start looking for a new place to stay. Just in case we have to move.”

She nods again and vanishes over the edge. One by one, they all leave, till it’s just you and the snow and the encroaching, viciously cold night.

You hunker down and smoulder with barely-suppressed rage, letting it stoke up a warmth in your veins. You wish you could be somewhere less crazy. You wish all these morons with their bike pumps and their hate would just roll over and die. You wish Thor would kill them all or something. You wish this kind of shit didn’t have to happen.

A tiny, quiet hope blooms like a fire in your chest. You kind of, you sort of, you maybe hope that someone really is hurting these kids. Because you wouldn’t mind clawing someone’s face up right now.

The hours slip on, cold and bleak. Eventually, you check your watch.

12:20

Go time. >Dex Check >DC15 >+3 modifier Rolled 5

>shit >shit >shit >yes JJ your suffering pleases me

You approach the grotty old house under a pall of invisibility.

Seeing as your sightings have been pretty much contained to the second floor, you decide to skip the first floor entirely, placing a palm against the weathered stone by the front doors and feeling for that uncanny, static feeling of your skin bonding to the wall.

You make your way up quickly, palm after palm. This is easy. You could do this shit with your eyes clo–

You tug yourself up and feel a chunk of stone dislodge under your grip. Gravity winds its way over your shoulders, bearing you down. You flail out to grasp at whatever you can, but nothing lends you purchase, and you plummet a short distance down.

You hit the ground with a dull, ungainly thud.

Urgh.

>THREAD 19: END

Thread 20

You are John James Green, mutant vagrant and amateur ghost hunter.

You groan. The snow burns white around you, clinging to your face. The adrenaline is already fading, subsiding into clamouring, biting cold.

You fell, what, ten feet? Eleven? You were lucky that the snow was there to break your fall somewhat, but your chest still feels like one big, bulbous bruise. A sharp pain bites at your left wrist – you think you sprained it, or pulled a muscle, or something. You’re not sure what, exactly, but it hurts when you try to move it.

You roll over onto your back, trying to find some sense of solidity in the vast, ethereal black up above. You’re still reeling a bit.

Glancing around, you realize you’ve landed within the orphanage grounds. The doors to the cloakroom and kitchen aren’t far from here, though they’re undoubtedly locked up this time of night.

>Current Funds: $85.50 >Hunger Level: 5 >[X] Cloakroom door.

You drag yourself up, glancing both ways for any watchful eyes. Content that your embarrassing defeat at the hands of gravity has gone unnoticed, you shrug your invisibility back on, fading out and trudging around the building to the door you and Kevin used. Should be easier to open, seeing as he pretty much turned the lock to shit all with those deathly hands of his.

Unsurprisingly, the lock hasn’t been replaced. You push your weight up against the door testily and find that it offers some sturdy resistance. Feels like someone’s wedged something in there to stop it from opening.

Fair enough.

>[X] Put some more force into it.

You move in closer, dig your feet deep into the snow, and put your back into it.

The portal resists for a moment before you find yourself ploughing forward, something grinding nosily against the floorboards inside. You’re just about fast enough to reach out and grab whatever it is – oh, it’s a chair, it seems – before it clatters down on the floor.

Still, that was relatively noisy. This place creaks a little whenever the wind blows hard enough, like an old man slowly coughing his way toward death, but you’d be surprised if nobody heard that.

>[X] Try to make it through into the main entrance.

You try to treat as lightly as possible over the groaning floorboards, making your way down the long corridor to the main entrance.

The huge window hanging over the front door is a halo of icy-soft snowlight, casting a net of mangled shadows across the ranks of looming banisters that line landing up above. To your right you can see the hall where the children were eating lunch earlier, row upon row of neatly-tucked chairs sitting in silence.

You wait, watching the stairway for signs of life.

Nothing. Sound sleepers? Or slow risers?

>[X] Check the patients’ room.

Carefully, you pad your way up the stairs, shadows quivering around you as the snow falls outside. Your eyes eke out the smallest, blackest crevices of the old house, but they do little to assuage the faint, holy strangeness of the place. Old house, old dark. If this really is some psychic kid going Carrie on everyone, they really picked the right place to do it. Or maybe the place picked it out of them.

Maybe the X-gene is genre-sensitive. Ha.

You make your way to the patients’ room. That’s the heart of all this. Those two kids. How, you’re not sure, but it’s definitely them, somehow.

Gently, you lean in on the door, easing it open with minimal creak. Immediately you feel the uneasy sense of transgressing upon somewhere sacred – somewhere changeless and opaque within time. They lie in their beds, much the same as you last saw them. The machines tick on noiselessly. There are no shifting shadows here, the curtains drawn tight.

>[X] Heatvision the room.

You focus your vision, draining away the nuance and subtlety of the visible spectrum, till only stark, bright primaries remain, etching out the language of hot and cold.

Blues and greens dominate the room. Much like last time, the children are several degrees below norm, but you weren’t really expecting so much of a change. You twist about slowly, panning your sight across the room, till a slice of colder blue catches your eye.

Someone – maybe their carer, whatever – has left their coat hanging behind the door, but there’s a ribbon of bright blue arcing behind it. You brush it aside and…

There’s… its three clear, concentric circles gleaming coldly in the wood.

>[X] Check it in normal vision.

You blink, shunting your vision back into the normal human range.

Yeah, it’s here too. Harder to notice, but certainly evident – a dark, concentric discolouration in the wood, etching out three circles of diminishing size. You’re not sure what it is exactly, though. Could be water deformation. Could be a stain of some kind. Could be… wood rot?

Why would rotten would be cold? Or arranged in three precise circles, for that matter?

>[X] Try feeling it.

Hesitating only for a moment, you run a gloved finger along one of the curves.

No indentation. You try passing your finger over the line and back again. No difference in consistency or texture. Just cold. Weird, your sense of touch is pretty–

“Who’s there?”

You freeze, the urge to yelp rising and knotting up in your chest.

“Who’s there?” The voice asks, again.

It’s not an adult. Sounds like a child – a girl. For a moment you were a little tempted to check behind you, where the children lie amidst their tangles of life support, but it’s clearly coming from the other side of the door.

“I know someone’s there.” She says, quietly, her voice low but by no means timid.

“I can see you.”

>[X] Write in.

The tightness in your throat subsides and you say the first thing that comes to mind.

“No you can't.” You assert, quite rightly. You’re invisible, after all. “I'm a Lizard Elf and everybody knows Lizard Elves don't exist.”

“Lots of things exist.” The voice remarks back, soft and quiet, pausing between each word, as if taking out time to breathe.

“Okay. What’s your name, girl?”

“Claire.”

Claire. Claire. That rings a bell. One of Layla’s friends?

“Well, Claire, Layla sent me to check up on your ghost problem.” Man, you hope they liked Layla. Though somehow you kinda doubt it. “You behind the door, Claire?”

The voice is silent. Then,

“No.” It whispers into your ear, cold, wet breath tickling at the back of your neck.

>[X] Don’t turn around. >[X] Vault. >[X] Write in.

You take a moment just sitting right there to not shit yourself and scream like a tiny woman. You then, with surgical precision, open the Vault in your head and pour very much of the last thirty seconds straight in, bolting the door behind.

Yes, that’s better.

“Claire…” You mutter, turning the name over in your head. “Is, uh, Alex with you? Anyone else?”

Nobody answers. The room is silent but for the short, barely-perceptible twitches of breath that move the children’s chests up and down. The cold breath against your neck is gone.

>[X] Check somewhere else. >[X] Try speaking to Claire a little bit more.

“Um, Claire?” The silence is your only answer. “Claire? I’m trying to help. Claire?”

Nothing.

Swallowing, you ease the door open again, stepping out onto the landing. You stop to check just about every corner or errant shadow before moving on. So, eldritch projection or whatever is happening. Noriko was right about that. The kids are all, like, ghosty and stuff.

Okay, well, they’re just kids. They’re not gonna hurt you.

You resolve to check on the other children, turning in to the long corridor lined with dorm rooms. The hallway is near solid black, only the window on the very far end providing a soft, feeble shaft of wintery light.

>[X] Listen at the doors. >[X] Open some doors, look inside. >[X] Write in.

Whatever is happening clearly has a greater chance of harming the kids than you. You tell yourself that as you stoop down beside the closest door. It’s vague, but you just have this creeping fear that there’s some other kid out there now, snapped clear of his or her body.

So you’re gonna check.

Pressing your ear up against the door, you listen in. Tiny breaths, the occasional shift under sheets, enclosing quiet. The silence here is like white noise, it’s fucking horrible. Urgh.

Maybe you're just imagining it.

Easing the door open, just very slightly, you glance in, surveying the room in the primary shades of heatvision. Standard body temperature, no one missing. You hear a breath sharpen, but it’s likely just a light sleeper. You back away and check the next.

You get three doors down when you hear one of the doors behind you creak open, nervous voices whispering in hushed excitement.

>[X] Check it out.

You pause, twisting about to watch.

The door appears to just stand open for a minute, before a young girl – she must be nine or ten – backs out, her face written in desperate shapes, teary shapes. She’s clad in baggy pyjamas and tucking a crumpled mess of bedsheets under one arm, clutching it close, like it has the power to open out into a doorway to somewhere brighter. A flashlight dangles from her other hand.

“Please.” She whispers. “Please, please let me”–

“No, you’re his favourite.”

A pair of small shapes physically rebuke her as she tries to get back in.

“Please!”

“He’ll come back” – “Get out”– “gonna be back to watch you”– “out”–

She’s drowned out by a surge of tiny voices, each one incensed with fear but straining to stay quiet. One of the other kids gives her one final, rough shove and shuts the door behind her. She stands, slack and disbelieving, staring down both ends of the dark corridor, before tapping lightly on the door with her hands.

“Please, please, please…”

>Perception Check >DC15 >+4 modifier

Rolled 20

>20 >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2YyTpXkges

Wow, that’s fucking cold. Ice cold. Colder, maybe.

You dawdle momentarily, not quite sure what to do, as she shrinks back against the door, fumbling at her flashlight.

And then you shiver, you breath running cold in your veins, and feel the unmistakeable, icy touch of eyes upon the back of your neck. You turn about, glancing along the corridor.

Under the dim, failing light at the end of the hall, a small, ashen shape stands in crystal silence, almost more a collection of shadings etched along the wall than a coherent figure. You feel yourself freeze up, staring harder, straining through the dim light to get some kind of purchase upon the faint outline.

You think… you think it’s Alex.

And you think his lips are moving. Half of him is cast in shadow, but, yeah, he’s saying something – something that refuses to be spoken, filling the air with only silence, as if whispered from afar.

>[X] Try to get closer.

You edge closer, squinting at the rapid movements of his mouth. His body is shadow and light and nothingness and his mouth is the same. His eyes stare at nothing, black tunnels into the night outside, cold and empty and seething.

There’s no sound. No matter how close you get, there’s nothing. His mouth is working out words – and they’re definitely words, you can see the artifice – so quickly, as if in a frenzy, but there’s nothing hitting your ears. It’s almost like he’s panicking.

Suddenly, he falls to the ground, the descent as silent as anything he’s trying to say. He falls and – no, he doesn’t fall.

Something tripped him. He reaches out and something – something in the dark – pulls him away, tugging at his leg. His fingers drive into the floor, grasping desperately for purchase, his mouth screaming silently, as he’s dragged across the ground, round the end of the hall.

>[X] Follow! Try to grab his hand!

You move before you think.

Before you know it you’re scrabbling across the floorboards, moving as fast and as quiet as you can.

Oh god, what is this shit? What is this?

He fights hard, gripping at the floor with every once of his – his strength? Do ghosts have strength? But every second takes him further into the dark, further, further…

You stretch out your hand for his, and promptly pass straight though it.

“Three three three three!”

And he’s gone, dragged screaming into the dark at the end of the hall. A dark that you can’t see through. A dark so complete and cold that it could be an archway into the depths of space.

>[X] Go after him.

You run in.

The dark closes around you.

You run. You run. You–

You’re John James Green. You’re fifteen.

You’re out of breath. Why? Because you’re fifteen? Because it’s your first day in New York?

Because you’re running.

They scream obscenities behind you. Your throat is ragged with hard breath and fear and hunger. Your legs are screaming. You don’t know where you’re going, just that you’ve got to get away. You turn the corner out of the dark and you stare up and brick upon brick upon brick, no way, no way out, your heart shrinks in your chest, you feel your shoulders sagging, you want to scream, you want to curl up and delve into yourself.

And their shadows creep along the wall. They’re behind you.

>[X] Try to turn invisible.

You can do this. You can – you should’ve been wearing shades or something, stupid, stupid.

You can do this.

You close your eyes and try to be small. Try to be a slither of light, nothing more. Try to push everything away and fade from the world, fade into a dream.

You think you felt something there. Yes! You’ve–

Your face explodes. That’s what it feels like. It was a bat, you remember that, it you remember hitting the ground and staring at it through broken tunnels of light, you feel your mouth fill up with blood, you twitch, you can’t breathe, it’s so fucking painful.

You stutter something. You don’t remember what.

“No more tricks, mutie!”

No more tricks. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No cards. No kings. No aces. No queens.

>[X] Try to get up and run.

Their eyes burn like fires in the night. This is so fucked up. How could you understand this? How could there be this fire in a man’s flesh?

You pull yourself up, fighting through the pain. You feel your legs wobble and your muscles creak. Your face wants to tear itself away, wants to vanish, it hurts like a toxin, like a fire, like you’re going to fall apart. You think they’re laughing at you.

You scrabble for the wall. You feel the blood slick your hands and mar the brick. You feel yourself rising, you’re so dizzy, your head’s so full of screams, you don’t know if it’s your hands doing the work or if you’re flying, hurtling over the lake, you’re going up, you’re grasping at the top of the wall, you’re pulling yourself over.

The bat shatters your right rib. You scream. You hold on. You scream. You feel them grabbing your jacket, you’re trying desperately to squeeze out of it, you’re so close now, you’re being dragged down, you hit the ground, you hold your chest like it’s about to burst outward.

They kick you. You try to get up and they stamp down on your legs. You cough out teeth and bile and blood.

The pain fades and you slump against the wall, your head exploding, a haze leaking from your body, a single, swollen, incognisant thought.

They splash you with something. It reeks – heady, horrible, pleasant, euphoric, disgusting. Gasoline.

A light sparks up in the reddened storm of your vision.

>[X] Don’t.

You want to scream. Fire. Fire, fire.

You don’t. You don’t anything.

You look up into the eyes of night-fire and see a nothing that rots the world around it, putrefying from the inside to the outside, from heart to soul to mind to sodden pulsing quivering closing groaning shrieking moaning flesh. You feel your life spinning out into the universe. It lances off, star-like-shot, burning without fire, the world enclosing it, caressing it, folding it into the purr of gravity ebbing, electromagnetism dancing, gases collapsing, fission and fusion and weak and strong, rushing outward, breathing one into the other into the other, drinking, gasping, crashing toward final, cosmic orgasm.

Something barks loudly. It’s not a dog. Gun. The light flutters out.

People scream and run, they shout, you feel the universe loosening its climactic grip upon you.

You blink. They’re gone. There are new people now, some shouting some speaking softly, some–

“Fuck! You fuck! You shit!”

“Please! Plea”–

The one in the suit is standing over night-eyes-fire-bearer. He’s screaming all the words of hate at him. He’s cutting him with a knife, over and over and over. His victim is pleading and screaming even as his eyes are scooped out of his face and the gun barks out again, spreading his skill across the pavement.

You watch all this from an opaque space of weary strangeness, feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

The man in the suit approaches you. He’s wiping his knife. He’s putting it away. He kneels down beside you. He offers you his hand.

“What’s your name, boyo?”

You feel your blood soaking his gloves.

“John.” You say, you say faintly.

He pulls you up.

“You can call me Creeper.”

You’re John James Green.

You’re fifteen.

Life isn’t bad. You have a bed to sleep in. You’re not cold. You’re not alone.

You’re still running, though.

You’re a lot better at it now. They scream after you and you scream back – that they’ll never catch you, that they suck, that they can eat your shit and your dust and the leavings of your meteoric rise to glory. You leap over a pile of trash, kicking it down on your way through, and you laugh and you laugh and you laugh when they stumble through it like ugly fucking dumb ogres from some children’s story.

You turn the corner. Dead end. Or it would’ve been, half a year ago.

Now you see the metal bins nearby that can serve as your trip over the wall. You see the fire escape jutting out nearby. You see the backdoor to some whatever delicatessen – the kind that nobody ever locks.

>[X] Fire escape.

You bound up the fire escape, grabbing and leaping and clambering your way up to the top of the building, leaving them behind, leaving them struggling, swaying, grasping, flailing. Your grin could cut your face in half.

They scream at you, their rage bulging in the air. You don’t care. You make it to the edge of the roof and you just fucking jump. Next roof isn’t far. You hang in the air for a moment, the wind scolding you, your blood crashing in your veins.

You barely catch the opposite roof. Really barely. You swear and scream and drag yourself up. You feel like an angel of free will.

You descend to the streets, pushing the little button in your brain that fades you out.

You cross a few streets, take a fee turns, catch the train.

When you get back to the basement Creeper operates out of, he laughs like a weird clown and all but hugs you. You don’t know why he wanted those funk-ass pills the guys over on the other end of Queens were pushing, but it doesn’t matter.

You remember what he said that day:

“You’ll go far, boyo.”

You’re John James Green.

You turn sixteen in two days.

The warehouse shouts and clatters and pulses around you. People pump stuff into stuff, pills into powder, stuff into pills, death into sex into dreams into rapture. The air is thick with sweat and toil.

You’ve just gotten back from dropping a pair of tourists. Tourists have money. Now you have money.

A few faces you recognize cluster at the stairway leading down to Creeper’s office. He likes being underground. Or under ground level, anyway. You don’t understand it, but whatever. They mill about, staring at anywhere that’s not at each other, like the singular assets of a stormcloud about to belch into thunder and lightning.

>[X] Ask what’s up.

“Hey, guys, what’s up?” These are people who mostly cut other people into little chunks for a living, and you’re just talking to them. “You look like somebody died or something.”

Big Ed rolls his shoulders and looms over you, patting your shoulder. He’s, as one might imagine, a big guy, more tattoo than human man, more fake teeth than real, but surprisingly stringent about not getting high on one’s own supply. He has kids or something.

“Nothin’ you should be worryin’ about, bro. The Hammerhead boys’re undercutting us, tryin’ ta get into Fisk’s happy books. We’re lookin’ at a, ah, a bit of a sales dip, you know? We gotta figure how’ta keep everyone this side’a Manhattan from smellin’ blood.” He grins a row of glistening teeth. Shiny. “None’a your concern, though.”

“Yeah, I guess.” You shrug. “Good luck with that.”

Well, whatever.

You head downstairs, taking the first right, then the second, then the left. You’ve memorized the way. Creeper likes to have… passages. Another thing you don’t really get.

You come to the door. The world slips away. Black tears at you, fire-spewing. You turn the handle and sidle in, you feel yourself grinning, why are you grinning, this isn’t a time for happy, shit.

No bulbs on. Projector shunting white light against one wall. You don’t know what was playing. You didn’t notice, maybe. Shadows flicker in the corners of the room. There’s a stink like death under your nose, like gristle fed through pigs, like fat left to congeal in the sun.

Creeper’s arched over his desk, back bowed, face pressed up against the wood.

He looks up, bolting upright, and you see the gratuitous lines of white powder streaking across the woodwork. It hangs in the air around him like a dusty corona, almost luminous against the flashing projector-light. He looks at you, and you see him.

His face. Not his flesh, but his face. He’s an outline, his head and his hands and his bare feet filled in with buzzing. He’s made of static, made of what you get when the TV’s on but nothing’s playing. Maybe he can’t focus on his powers, maybe, whatever, doesn’t matter. Either way, you see his face. You see two glistening, bloodshot, desperate eyes staring at you from the sea of silvery static, crazed and anxious, and demonic and human. You see a fear so bright it nearly turns you way – he knows, he’s seen me, he’s seen my face. He knows.

You did know. You did see his face. Not his flesh face, but his soul. That was when everything became different somehow.

He’s furious. He opens his mouth and spits the words out at you, it’s a torrent, it’s a tide of bile and shit, he looks at you and he says:

“Chromosome 18 is one of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes present in human beings. It is composed along roughly eighty-five million base pairs, tallying to approximately 2.5 percent of the combined DNA in human cells. It contains somewhere between three hundred and four hundred genes, among these, the genes responsible for various genetic diseases and disorders – including but not limited to; Niemann–Pick disease, Edwards syndrome (or Trisomy 18), porphyria, Pitt–Hopkins syndrome, selective mutism, and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia…”

Laura leans in from the dark, holding her candle aloft, blue flame flickering. She says:

“The Star represents hope, peace of mind, serenity, purity of essence.”

Noriko leans in from the dark, holding her candle aloft, eyes bright and unseeing.

“The Wheel represents fate, opportunity, twisting ways, dissension.”

Joyce leans in from the dark, holding her candle aloft, flesh pale and unyielding, eyes black, lips cold.

“The Tower represents disruption, calamity, disillusion, destructive transformation.”

The fire rips through you in a surge of neverness, scalding you with nothing, burning you with cold. You fall into it, unable to scream, unable to see, unable to breathe.

Oh Jesus Christ.

You breathe in sharply.

You feel the wood beneath your hands, on your cheek, you feel yourself breathing finally, Christ, what the fuck.

You drag yourself up. Or, at the very least, you try to. There are tears in your eyes, your cheeks are wet. You feel like shit and piss.

The orphanage is still and dark around you. You’re at the end of the hall, round the corner that leads to the bathroom. Out of sight of any particularly bad doors – which is good, because you soon realize that you’ve become quite visible. Shit.

Shit.

You lie there and shake for a moment. Shit.

>[X] There was that girl, look for that girl, she was in trouble or something. >[X] Fade out again.

Everything feels distant. The walls are thin strips of shadow. You feel… muted.

You pull yourself up, leaning heavily against one of the walls, and let yourself fade into invisibility. It’s pretty easy, considering that you’re scared as balls and you desperately want to just jump out of a window.

But there’s that girl. What was she, ten?

You stumble around the corner. She’s not there, the hall is empty. But you see the thin, warm beam of a flashlight cutting through the dark up ahead, rising from below the landing. You plod after it, eventually reaching the stairs.

Why is everything so strange now? The world has this… greasy element to it. Almost like you’re seeing it through a bowl of water.

You reach the base of the stairs and see her standing in the middle of the entrance, all but balled up on her feet. She’s shining the torch this way and that, slowly approaching one of the doors to the left. Her cheeks are stained with tear-remnants.

She opens the door and steps tentatively in.

>[X] Shadow her.

You follow her in, glancing around.

The place looks like a sitting room of some kind. Spacious, carpeted, generally nice. There’s a TV against one wall and a radio sitting on a mantelpiece over one of those old-timey, likely blocked-up fireplaces. A sofa dominates the centre of the room.

You can pretty much imagine why she’d come here. If it weren’t for the enclosing dark and the psychic wringer you’d just been put through, it would’ve been pretty cosy.

She sits down on the sofa, curling up, and–

A sudden blast of sound nearly has you on your back again. The girl screams into her hands, turning what would’ve been a high-pitched alarm into a muffled, pathetic little wail.

The radio just turned on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLhN__oEHaw

>[X] Look around in heatvision.

Holy fuck.

You girl’s scream fades away into a sob, still shut tight against her palms.

You squint, cycling the visible spectrum away, heatvision colouring your perception. You scan the room, searching for anyone that could have snuck in and switched it on – anyone that could’ve passed through the walls, or tripped it telekinetically, or anything.

The room reads normal, thermally speaking.

Until you look at the girl, and you see the colour of the world dip inwards into nothingness beside her, a sheer, black hole in heat and cold and anything standing at her side in the shape of a small person. It fluxes, seething at its edges, and–

“Help me.”

It’s a young voice. Male. Cold. Flat.

“Help me.”

>[X] Switch to normalvision. >[X] Speak. Ask how.

You blink, shifting your vision back.

Gradually, a sense of consistency seeps into the dark figure, filling in the gaps with pale flesh and dark hair. It’s Alex – not dark and shadowy as he was in the corridor, but appearing as he does upstairs – clothed in loose-fitting pyjamas and strung in intravenous cables, the soft ticking of the machines hanging in the air around him. He has bright, florid green eyes. They kind of remind you of Laura’s, actually.

You bite your lip.

“How?”

Flinching, you glance at the girl… but she doesn’t respond. Her gaze is still fixed, thoroughly terrified, on the radio.

“She can’t hear you.” States Alex, or the shade of Alex, his tone leaden. “You walked through the shadow. You’re wherever I am now.”

Oh… oh, that isn’t good, is it?

“If you help me get back, though, then I can pull you back with me. Claire too.”

“…Okay.” What else can you say?

“She’s the key.” He looks at the girl. “Her mind is… different. Strong. Like mine. Like Claire’s. It can draw me back, I can feel it. Like a star pulling a planet into its orbit.”

>[X] All.

“…I’m really in ghost town?”

“I don’t call it that, but yes.” Alex watches the girl as she eases herself off the sofa. “Now, quickly, you must help me.”

“Was the radio you?” You ask. You feel you have the right to know, seeing as it nearly gave you a heart attack.

“No. Maybe it was Claire?”

“What happened when I walked into that dark?” That’s probably the question you most want answered. You… you didn’t want to see all of that again.

He shrugs.

“I don’t know. The space between the soul and the mind? The record at the heart of time? Hell? Heaven? Purgatory? There’s much I don’t understand. What did you see?”

“You know… some stuff.” You swallow, and, in one of your less glorious moments, decide to focus on the less disturbing of the disturbing crap: “Um, these three girls I know… appeared. And said stuff, about… stuff. Destiny. Fate. Other stuff.”

“Three wise ladies are commonly associated with the management of destiny." States Alex, a ponderous tone to his voice. "Perhaps the Moirai appeared to you in familiar shapes? Or Morrigan and her sisters? Now, help me.”

What.

“Yeah, uh, how can I possibly help? I’m not really much of a psychic.”

“You don’t have to be.” He remarks, watching the girl tread towards the radio. “Anne could draw me in, but I’ve been in this place too long. I’m… further out… than you. I need a bridge-soul. A person in this place to act as intermediary between my mind and hers.”

>[X] “That sounds kinda dangerous.”

“Okay…”

Okay, you heard a lot of mumbo-jumbo there. But you’re pretty sure you heard something about using a soul – or a mind or whatever – as a bridge.

“…That sounds kinda dangerous.” Soul as a bridge. Bridges can, like, collapse under heavy loads. Or you can fall off them. Or be pushed. “Did you try this with Claire too?”

He nods.

“Regretfully, yes. I didn’t understand as much as I do now. I understand many things now.” He eyes Anne as she tries in vain to switch off the radio. The music keeps on coming. “I didn’t have an anchor then. I was already too weak, and I failed. I ended up trapping us both. But now you are here.”

Yeah. Funny how that worked out.

“Now, help me. Give me your hand.” >[X] Write in.

“Where’s Claire? How are we gonna get her out?”

As far as yo>[X] “Yeah, no. You’re no kid.”

Right then. That is way, way too callous for your liking.

You take a step back, swallowing hard. He furrows his brow at you.

“Yeah, no.” He had you going for a while there, but really? Really? All that… mystic talk? “You’re no kid. Who the hell are you?”

His eyes droop and he lets his lip quiver.

“But… but I am a child. I’m lost, I need you to get home.”

You stand still. You’re not having it. He puppydogs you with those brilliant greens for almost a minute, before, finally, he simply sighs.

A smile curls at his lips.

“Well, I suppose I became somewhat hasty there.” His voice. It’s different. You can’t say how, but… it just doesn’t feel right. “Do you like the eyes, Jonathan? I’m wearing them just for you.”u can tell, there’s only one ghost kid in the room. And even that might be a generous counting.

He shrugs.

“I don’t know. She can’t leave the house, though.”

He extends his hand.

“Take my hand and serve as our bridge. I can pull us all through the conduit Anne provides. We can all go home. Which is what we all want, isn’t it? Do you really want to be out in the cold forever?”

>[X] “Yeah, no. You’re no kid.”

Right then. That is way, way too callous for your liking.

You take a step back, swallowing hard. He furrows his brow at you.

“Yeah, no.” He had you going for a while there, but really? Really? All that… mystic talk? “You’re no kid. Who the hell are you?”

His eyes droop and he lets his lip quiver.

“But… but I am a child. I’m lost, I need you to get home.”

You stand still. You’re not having it. He puppydogs you with those brilliant greens for almost a minute, before, finally, he simply sighs.

A smile curls at his lips.

“Well, I suppose I became somewhat hasty there.” His voice. It’s different. You can’t say how, but… it just doesn’t feel right. “Do you like the eyes, Jonathan? I’m wearing them just for you.”

>[X] “They’re lovely. Now tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“They’re lovely.” You spit out, still feeling the faint urge to back away from the tiny apparition.

‘Alex’ folds his hands behind his back, striding over to unsuspecting Anne – who has moved on to straight-up unplugging the radio, to no avail – and coming… coming an inch from touching her, his finger hovering above her shoulder, as if drawn away at the last second by some inexorable, strange gravity.

He looks at her with a desire in his eyes like nothing you know. It’s not sexual. It’s not… physical in the least. What ferments in those perfect replicas of Laura’s eyes might be something you simply don’t understand on any level. Something inhuman.

“Now tell me what the hell’s going on.”

He turns his gaze back to you. You feel yourself shrink as time, vast and merciless, uncoils in his eyes. It’s a sense of smallness that defies description, something that gnaws at the very roots of fear – beyond fear of death, of disgrace, of dark, of damnation. Just fear, pure and unmitigated by material experience.

This… this doesn’t feel like a mutant.

“What’s going on, Jonathan – or JJ, I suppose, if you prefer it – is that these children are my way out of here. And I am yours, now that you’ve gotten yourself all good and stuck.”

He extends his hand once more.

“Take my hand. I require meat and you require a way back. I’m offering you a deal that I can’t renege on, a deal that you need.”

>[X] “Who… or what… are you?” >[X] “Why do you need all three of them? Three’s the magic number, right?”

“Who… or what… are you?”

What the hell have you stumbled into? Something worse than Creeper, that’s for sure. Creeper is a man. This thing isn’t a man.

“I’ve had a few names.” He replies, rather smugly. “What I am, exactly, is a matter of discussion for the holy men and women of your world. When I fell from Heaven I was but a feather upon the wing of King Beleth, but I like to believe that I’ve matured somewhat. More important than what I am is what I should be.”

He smiles longingly. Caringly. Lovingly.

“I don’t deserve to be here.” He reaches out and… and just about doesn’t touch Anne. Just. Is he getting closer? “I deserve what you have far more sorely than any of you. I deserve to have your flesh, to feel

and fuck and kill and eat and dream. You spent a minute or two in the dark. I have spent eons there, and I will not tolerate an hour more.”

What the hell is he telling you? Is he telling you he’s a demon? What… how is this even…

“What… uh, why do you need all three of them?” You’re stalling now. You hope he can’t tell. He? It? “Three’s the magic number, right?”

“I am magnitudes greater than any one man or woman.” Right. Okay. You suspected something along those lines. “My essence cannot be contained within a single body. Now, your hand, please, and your consent. I do not need you, JJ, but I am willing to help you if it expedites my ascension. I could even sweeten the deal somewhat.”

>[X] Taserhands.

Every nerve in your body tells you that, yes, the deal will be sweet. Your genetics sing it, your inner mind echoes it. But, in the end, you’re going to have to go with:

“Eat shit.”

You grab the snotty little demon-kid-Alex-thing’s wrist and turn on the power.

…And nothing happens.

“Trying to zap me, JJ?” Asks ‘Alex’, feigning a child’s earnest helpfulness. “The interactions required for such a thing to occur cannot take place here. This place is thought, not physics.”

Without hesitating, he bludgeons you across the face with the back of his hand. It’s not a child’s swing. You feel yourself sail through the ether, coming down hard on the desk set against the far end of the room.

Anne screams and falls over herself, clutching at her shoulders and crying.

“Please! Please, just leave me alone!”

A strange replica of concern on his face, the Alex thing kneels down beside her.

“I was going to help you, JJ. I didn’t have to. Honestly, I felt that we were one and the same.” He strokes the air above her head. “Fallen, lost creatures, far from home. Unwanted by our fellows, unloved by our fathers,”–

You shut your eyes and try not to listen. He’s a demon, right? Or something pretending to be one?

Demons lie. Demons lie.

–“lost forever to our siblings. I would go home, too, if I could. But I can’t. So I will make do.”

His voice shifts.

“Anne. It’s me, Annie.”

She looks about, still breathing between heavy sobs.

“…Alex?”

“Yes, it’s Alex. Anne, Annie, you need to help me. I’m stuck. I always thought you were the prettiest, Annie, and now I need you to save me…”

“Where… where are you?”

“I’m lost. Follow my voice, Annie. I need your help. I need you, Annie…”

>Willpower Check >DC15 >+2 modifier for Rolled 19

>modified 20 >nicely done

“Get the hell away from her!”

You’re pissed. You’re terrified and you’re pissed. The former more than the latter, but you have enough anger in you to drag yourself up.

You fling yourself at him. It.

Your mind blasts through a storm of images. You’re fighting a demon. You’re probably going to die. You’re going to die. You let your memories clothe your last, furious moments, wrapping them around you, adorning your fists with them, clouding your brain with them. You hone in on one instant, one instant surrounded by death and ending, one thing to burn up your head with, one shield.

You’ll be alright, John. You’re not just anyone.

You’ll be alright. Alright. You’ll be alright.

You bear him down to the ground, wrapping your hands around his neck. Your fingers bleed arcs of electricity, less the reality than the thought of it, elemental and raw, surging through you and through him. He grimaces and snarls – he snarls, like an animal – into your face, revealing a maw full of serrated, blackened teeth.

“Fine. The road most bloody, then.”

His hands close around your arms and he pulls hard.

>Willpower Check >DC16 >+3 modifier

Rolled 14

>17 >bruddy good

God, he’s strong. He attacks you with an age of black bile. Your arms quiver and cold snaps at your tendons, slipping between your thoughts, weakening you. You feel him beginning to pry your arms away, the lightning fading, heat dwindling.

“Annie!” He hisses out, in Alex’s voice. “Annie, I’m in the basement! Under the stairs. That’s where he took me, Annie! You need to go in there! You need to”–

He trails off into a scream of pain and rage. Your sister explodes in your mind. Her fist arcs through the air and her arms hurl you to safety. You fly across the lake, pain and shame and guilt eating at you like a fire inside, churning through you, burning with nightmare heat. Your storm is red and angry and hateful. Your lightning is a mess of arcing, crimson scrawls, searing through whatever he has for flesh, burning him just as sure as it burns you.

“Fine!” Alex seeps inward into a crawling, black absence of form. “Fine!”

The voice is a crashing, thundering thing, a doom at the heart of stars, the world collapsing on its edge.

“An enemy you can’t hope to defeat, then!”

You push down. Can’t hope to defeat? Bullshi–

The black mass swats you aside with casual ease. You tumble across the floorboards, your ribs screaming complaints at you. The seething nothing congeals, lapping up definition, folding itself into form, and you look up…

At a green-eyed you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6psnrd6m6qQ

>THREAD 20: END

Thread 21

You are John James Green, homeless mutant.

The snow hisses against your flesh. You don’t know if you should be doing this, but you can barely resist – you feel like you’re still inside, still burning.

Your gloves are a ropy, burnt mess, rendered all but useless. Your hands aren’t much better. Their palms are still smoking very faintly, skin stripped down into smouldering tatters. It reminds of the way wax drips, running in thick, spitting lines. You’re not sure how bad this is – save that it’s somewhere past the point of ‘very bad’.

Tonight you fought something you had no business fighting, and it seems you’ve paid the price. You vaguely remember the blast – you recall the bannisters catching fire, you recall being knocked off your feet. You remember getting up and dragging the two kids to safety, lungs crawling with thick, dark smoke. You think you left them at the sidewalk.

Now you’re in an alley almost a block away, dragging your hands through the snow. They feel like lead. Like dead weight. The night is gradually falling apart, an increasing number of sirens cutting into the silence. The pain makes you want to vomit, but there’s not all that much in your stomach.

>Hunger Level: 7 >Current Funds: $85.50

>[X] Counterclaws!

You feel your own claws knead their way out from under your skin.

Letting instinct guide you, you answer his snarl with one of your own – it occurs to you, at the very edge of thought, that you didn’t know that was a noise you could make – and meet him head-on, aiming a slash at his beautiful green eyes.

For an instant you perceive the mockery of your flesh slipping away, ribbons of shadow unfurling like blood and paint-strippings where your claws dig into his face, but then, suddenly. it’s as if a grenade just exploded in your eyes – you hear yourself scream as the pain blossoms through you, seeming to all but crack open your face.

It’s gone before you hit the floor, but by then he’s on you, his claws searing in your chest – like tiny splinters of fire, digging, burning, scraping through you, you can feel him surging into you, drinking from you, hurting you.

“Your sensations are incredible, JJ. Even here.”

It’s a terrible voice. It’s terrible, until you realize it must be yours.

>Willpower Check >DC17 >+1 modifier Rolled 16

>17 >success

He bores into your skull. You feel your heart draining into the beating of his, their echoes mingling, dancing, till you don’t know which is yours and which is his. It hurts like scolded burned disappointment failed abandoned and it entices like all the above, wrenching into you, bleeding.

Desperately, you reach out for something strong. The terror of Noriko and the alley races back to you, overwhelming you. You don’t know if she’s gonna explode or… or what. God, this chick and her stupid blue hair, she’s gonna be the death of you. The alley orphanage operating table lights up, arcs of hellish

blue straining the shadows to their utmost limit, pouring from your heart and lapping over you, lashing out like an uneasy sleeper.

It flays him, burning through his non-flesh and driving him back. He lets go, but it’s not enough – he’s still on you, his claws still connected by veins of shadow, fishing hooks, spider-webs.

He pulls. You scream – inside and out.

“Remember how our father looked at us, JJ? You remember that disappointed face?”

No. Yes? Your memories ache with disgust and fever and truth and lies. You don’t know. You don’t know. Maybe.

“Let’s reminisce a while.”

Your failures choke in on you. You feel your chest swell with them, bulging, their slippery forms encasing your heart and your lungs, wriggling in every undeserved breath, crushing, eating, tearing their way in and out. Joyce pushes at your skin, stretching, screaming to be free. Your mother is in there with her, and your father, and your teachers and friends and everyone that you ever let down. They’re going to rip you apart. They’re going to feed on you. They deserve it, too.

You at least owe them this.

>Willpower Check >DC15 >-3 modifier >yep, you read that right, -3 modifier Rolled 11 - 3 >8 >not good enough

You trace your way back along the lightning, grasping for anything – anything that can provide solidity, anything that isn’t failure, anything.

You latch on to Laura. The snow and the desolation surrounds you. She doesn’t leave, she stays, you feel her warmth, she smells awful and so do you, her tears are in your hoodie and her breath is close, warm, quiet, soft–

And it collapses inwards, tearing past the rest of your memories, your failures, hurting them, hurting you, you scream, you feel it fold up into a nail in your head and he pushes and pushes and pushes it, he hammers it in and in and in till it’s scraping the back you your skull your mind your soul.

His hands snap about your neck. You feel him in your bloodstream. He caresses when he squeezes, he throttles you with a loving, gentle touch.

“God, daddy, yes, hah. Soft and warm.” He breaths out the smell of the M roasting in your flesh. The smell of Laura’s hoodie. “All those tingly feelings. I’m not sure we’re allowed that kind of stuff, JJ. It’s all a bit above our station.”

>Willpower Check >DC15 >+3 modifier Rolled 14

>17 >success

His words mean next to nothing. You barely have the thought left in your mind to process them. The exit wounds carved by your escaping, fleeing thoughts fill your skull with pain.

His grip tightens. You feel yourself struggle for air, for something, but you’re not doing it, it’s just your body, just your survival instinct.

You’re not there. You’re watching him drink in everything that you love, his grin exultant and hungry, his eyes gleaming with obsessive want. He really is you. Selfish, and hungry, and needy. Feeding and sipping and surviving off the deaths of others.

You plummet, soaring over the lake. You eat the last of your sister’s strength and use it to fly, fly away, leave her to burn. Your mother carries you over the dunes. The sun beats down on her, but she carries you anyway, and you laugh and smile, while an aneurysm is slowly forming in her head. She collapses into kindling. Fire swarms over you.

You burn.

His grip loosens.

His teeth – the teeth that are his fingers – withdraw, smoking luridly, burns streaking along their length. His face is sick. He screams at you angrily and you feel yourself rising, you feel yourself pushing him off, scrabbling at his arms, grabbing, shoving, it’s pathetic, but it’s working.

You feel weak, but only as weak as him.

“You know, JJ…”

He flails feebly at you. You’re both tired and hurt. You kick, you claw, he does the same. He’s calmed down. You’re not pushing him off anymore – you don’t know when it happened, but you’re on him now, you’re throttling him.

He doesn’t seem to care.

“I don’t think I particularly need Annie after all. I wanted a matching set…” You squeeze, you squeeze without thinking, is it you that’s squeezing or is it him, is he throttling himself? “…but I can live without one. You and I have a lot more in common. Normally”–

You’re not hearing this. You scream at him and flood his veins with electricity.

– “Normally I have to beat them down, break them. Make it a blessing when I take their meat from them. But I think you’ve pretty much done that to yourself. You’ll do fine.”

No. No, that can’t–

You thrust your hands into you. You feel yourself climbing into your mouth, past your teeth, slipping under your eyelids, melting into your pores. You feel yourself growing very, very small, and very, unbelievably large…

>Fire

You feel like you’re vomiting. You’re vomiting into your own mouth. You’re vomiting yourself into yourself.

You stand over your prone, naked form. Your great claws and your sharp teeth and your beautiful wings are smeared with blood, your blood, you’re delving through yourself, cracking open your ribcage, pulling apart your lungs, drinking your red. You rip out your heart and hold it aloft, admiring its crystalline gleam, turning it over in your hands, stroking it, and you press it to your chest.

You so badly wish you had one of these.

You slam it against the nothingness that surrounds you. You slam it against your ribs and your tattered seams. You slam it against your walls. You have to get in there, you have to open it. You love it so. There are plenty of cracks, each one multiplying its beauty, each one a new channel for light and love – you just have to rip one open. You just have to get in.

Chips fly as you claw at it. It’s so fragile, but that makes it wonderful. Each tiny shard you flick away reveals more of its beauty, more of its inner radiance. You stare lovingly into the flickering, flashing glow. And it stares out at you, the light rising, the glow brightening, it’s not warm anymore, it’s hot, blistering, scorching.

Through the cracks there comes no love or light, but a fire, fire reaping the sky, fire like the collapse at the end of time, fire sprawling, flicking, churning. The heat swallows you. You feel the M sear your flesh and the smoke clog your lungs, slowing you, choking you. You feel the hot inevitability of your sister’s blood – on your hands, in your hair, weighing down your wings. You can’t fly away, you can’t run, you can only burn.

You roar in hate and pain. You roar at your sister and your mother, you roar at the Morningstar for bringing you so low and at Creeper for ruining you, at your father for abandoning you, at yourself for failing all of them.

“Out!” You scream, you scream through the fire! “Out! Get out!”

You–

You open your eyes and rasp in the cold air. Your lungs feel full of dust – you cough and hack and spit, bracing yourself against the floorboards.

You feel like shit.

Your ears ring. The dark crowds you, but there’s something other than fire, finally. You unscrew your eyelids look up at the landing looming over you, at the stairs marching up to its side, at the great windows gleaming with snow-light.

Somebody’s screaming. As if from a great distance, you hear feet pattering over the floorboards up above, doors creaking loudly and voices searching through the dark. Annie is huddled against the stairwell. She’s looking at you. She’s the one screaming.

…Is this the real world?

>[X] Vanish. >[X] Take stock. >[X] Calm screaming girl.

Your head swims. Every time the girl achieves a new tenor it’s an iceberg breaking to the surface. God.

You pull yourself to your feet, leaning heavily against the nearby bannisters. There’s – you glance around frantically – there’s nothing, no sign of the battle. No sign of the demon, or you, or whatever, whatever it was.

“Hey.” You groan. Your mouth is ash and shit. “Hey, uh… alright, it’s, calm down.”

You breathe.

“Calm down. It’s okay now.”

“You!”

Oh, no it’s not. Shapes cluster atop the landing. The tall, aging woman that you presumed to be the owner stands at the top of the stares, glaring down at you with eyes of equal parts fear and indignant rage.

“You! I don’t know who you are, but you have until five seconds ago to get gone! I’m calling the police!”

You flick the vanish button in your head, but it’s like pushing a dead switch. You shove it down as hard you can, but the wiring’s fried, or something. Great.

“I mean it! Whatever kind of sick”–

She nearly jumps out of her skin – and so do you – when a sudden, loud bang shakes one of the doors upstairs. The door… the door that the two kids are behind. She freezes, her voice snared in her throat.

The door shakes again, harder this time. And again, every window in the house rattling along.

Roll Persuasion.

>DC15 >+1 modifier Rolled 13 + 1

>[X] “Everybody out!" >14 >fail

“Get out! Everybody out now!”

THUMP. The whole building shakes. Jesus Christ.

“Now! Get the”–

“Now, now listen here, you’ve no right to”–

THUMP. The foundations shift. You’re sure of it.

“Get! The! Fuck! Out!” You scream, practically begging them.

But they’re transfixed. The kids have cleared the way, some of them running down the stairs, some of them just hovering all over the landing, but nobody’s listening. Lordy fucking Christ Vishnu Marduk Motherfuckers! Have none of these shitty shit shits seen Poltergeist?

The lady takes a tentative step towards the door.

“Alex?” She says, her voice tinged with a doubtful hope. “Claire? Is that”–

The door flies from its hinges, a torrent of fire licking in its wake. It soars across the landing and pitches her straight off her feet. It slams her into the wall, all but bursting her open. There is a moment of unbelieving silence as the children realize that their – dunno, matron mother or something – is now a lifeless paste of gristle and blood sandwiched between two planes of wood, and then chaos takes over the proceedings.

They scream. They run towards the exits. They just run wherever. What’s left of the staff – there’s still one up there, the one that was with the kids earlier – tries to shepherd them as best she can, but they’re a mess of stamping legs and flailing arms.

“JJ…” Your skull shakes. You feel a metallic, crimson wetness roll down over your lips. “You’ve driven me to this, Jonathan.”

It’s coming from up there. That room. It’s your voice – your voice, if you were an angel, if you were a god. It makes your eyes shake in your head and the children scream in pain.

Little Alexander and littler Claire float out, their hands enjoined in a white-knuckled tryst, their pyjamas trailing tongues of fire. Their eyes are immense, black pits, and betwixt their head hangs a diadem of shrieking, searing nothingness.

“You’ve driven me to this…”

>[X] Help the kids escape. >[X] Buy the kids some time somehow? Oh God.

Just – just looking at it hurts. Christ.

You grit your teeth and, for some reason, you pull back your hood. If you’re gonna do this, you’re doing it as you, not as Unspecified Hobo #342,000,000. Might as well die looking pretty.

“What a fucking surprise!” You shout up at him-it-them, trying hard as hell to keep your voice even. “Too weak to possess me, so you go after the kids. Lame!”

The children are rushing the exits. Not much you can do except keep this – this thing – busy. And right now that means keeping all of its immense, jealous hate focused on you.

“Perhaps. You did drive me to this, Jonathan, but it will hardly be a point in your favour.” You flinch, clenching your fists and trying not to balk. Fuck, you hope he’s less wordy in this form. Every syllable out of his mouth is like someone tightening a clamp around your head. “I am receding into the dark, but I will take these ones with me. I told you, did I not? Two hosts cannot sustain me. I’m burning them out. They’ll be mine to play with for eternity, and that will be upon you.”

…Well, that’s just fucking petty.

>[X] Stall. >[X] ABJURE.

You start walking. Towards him. Why, perhaps, you’ll never decipher.

You ascend the stairs at a measured gait, the thing’s black gaze following you all the way. You stay to one side to allow the last straggling children through. Up ahead, at the top of the stairs, a crucifix hangs upon one wall, watching over the decidedly infernal proceedings. If you can just get to that, maybe… well, it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?

“So, what about you, then?” You ask, injecting your tone with as much mock as possible. “Back to the losing side? Back to licking the Prince of Lies’ boots?”

Its dual faces grin in unison.

“You are only demonstrating your ignorance, Jonathan.” You think you feel a blood vessel burst in your nose. Or something. “The Morningstar quit Hell some time ago. The Abyss is, for the most part, a meritocracy. Something you will no doubt learn for yourself one day, when your guilt and your self-pity drags you there.”

“Fascinating.”

Actually it probably is, but you’re not there to discuss theological crap with a demon. That said, what you’re actually about to do is almost as ridiculous.

“And,” You begin, stuttering a little “though I walk through the Shadow of the Valley of Death”–

“…What are you doing, Jonathan?”

– “I shall fear no evil”–

“That can be amended, I’m sure.”

– “because THOU ART A PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT!”

You grab the crucifix – yes, yes you made it! – and thrust it in the creature’s face(s).

Nothing happens.

It laughs. It laughs in a voice of shattered edges and falling bones.

“Really, Jonathan?”

Your crucifix explodes.

You yelp in pain, splinters biting into your hand, and the force of the blast lifts you off your feet, slamming you against the opposite wall. Fuck. Christ, this hurts. Your hand – it’s been absolutely mangled. What isn’t full of splinters is horribly burned.

“Christianity? Really? You think that, of all the thousands of faiths to have infested the history of this planet, the billions of this galaxy, the untold trillions of this universe, you get to have the special one? I was ancient before your drunk and stoned Abraham was a whisper in his father’s sack.”

Shit. You don’t have… ghost physics… on your side now. And apparently you don’t have Jesus, either. You just have you. How the hell do you fight this thing?

>[X] Write in.

You know what you have?

You have what (almost) every hobo has. You have your stupid puffy coat. You have your unshaven stubbly face. You have your brain. You have your hands. And you have a pretty fucking powerful need to survive – a need that will drive you to do just about anything, no matter how terrible an idea it might seem later, so long as you can see another shitty day of your shitty life.

“I had to try, didn’t I?” You spit, trying not to think about how much this next bit is liable to hurt. “Also, your face is sack.”

You lunge for the kids’ hands. You’ll bet fucking anything that that’s what’s keeping him anchored to both of them – that without them connected, he’s straight out of luck.

You stagger back as a burst of flame slices across the floorboards before you, encircling the demon and its hosts in a fiery ring. Fire. Fire.

Fire.

You feel your throat dry up instantly. Your knees all but desert you.

“Nice try, but if I’ve learned anything from the debacle of our mingling, Jonathan…” God, you hate that smug mimicry of your voice. “It’s you can be quite well trusted to curl up and cry when faced with this particular obstacle.”

>ONE LAST WILLPOWER TEST >WHAT THOUGHT WILL YOU USE? >WHAT GIVES YOU STRENGTH? >WHAT GIVES YOU COURAGE? >DC15 >+4 modifier >+1 modifier for OVERFLOWING COURAGE Rolled 20

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JACvsucZj5A

You breathe sharply. You – god, fuck, how can you be this pathetic? You can’t be like this. You can’t. And it –

“It’s not going to end like this. It’s not going to end like this. It’s”– You don’t know how many times you repeated it. It became your heartbeat. It circles your head as a mantra, taking you out along the lake, flying, watching from that crystal vantage. You remember it all so well.

“It’s not going to end like this…”

Your father’s funeral is like a ghost in your memory. You remember the curtains, the white, the candles and their thin, pale strips of flame. Even your mother’s death has decayed, falling apart and unwinding, leaving only the gristle, only the shadow. But the shore, the lake, the night, they are perfect and forever.

“It’s not going to end like this…”

You’re going back to your dumb apartment. You’re going back to Noriko. You’re going back to Kevin. You’re going back to Laura. Hell, you might even be glad to see Layla after this. You’re going back to them because it’s not going to end like this.

“It’s not going to end like this!” You scream it, you become it, you let it move you without thought or understanding, you let it program your reactions and galvanize your body, let it be the only thing that can shift you, the only thing that can shake you. “It’s not going to end like this!”

You plunge through the fire. Your stomach is a shrivelled mess and there are tears in your eyes and you’re sweating cold rivers but you make it over and you clamp your hands down – you clamp your hands the fuck down – on the kids’ wrists. And you pull.

“No!” It shrieks. It shrieks it in your voice, in Alex’s voice, in Claire’s voice, in a voice of clashing spears.

They come apart and it screams. You strain your arms and pull, pull, pull. There’s something drawing them back, some magnetism between them, the creature’s will dragging them back, but you will not let

go. Even when your throat seizes up and you feel invisible fingers tightening around your neck, you don’t let go. Even when you see, half-realized in the haze, the vast silhouette of the thing, a faceless angel wreathed in smoking, twisting colour, you don’t let go.

You grind your teeth and ignore your palms burning and scream and pull.

And in one great heave of thunder, as though the forces driving them together have suddenly turned outward, they come apart.

>THREAD 21: END

Thread 22 You are John James Green, homeless mutant.

The snow hisses against your flesh. You don’t know if you should be doing this, but you can barely resist – you feel like you’re still inside, still burning.

Your gloves are a ropy, burnt mess, rendered all but useless. Your hands aren’t much better. Their palms are still smoking very faintly, skin stripped down into smouldering tatters. It reminds of the way wax drips, running in thick, spitting lines. You’re not sure how bad this is – save that it’s somewhere past the point of ‘very bad’.

Tonight you fought something you had no business fighting, and it seems you’ve paid the price. You vaguely remember the blast – you recall the bannisters catching fire, you recall being knocked off your feet. You remember getting up and dragging the two kids to safety, lungs crawling with thick, dark smoke. You think you left them at the sidewalk.

Now you’re in an alley almost a block away, dragging your hands through the snow. They feel like lead. Like dead weight. The night is gradually falling apart, an increasing number of sirens cutting into the silence. The pain makes you want to vomit, but there’s not all that much in your stomach.

>Hunger Level: 7 >Current Funds: $85.50

>[X] Head home.

Gotta get home. Your hands – you need to get off the streets for a while.

Can’t go to a hospital. Can’t deal with bills. Do they even accept mutants? For all you know, you could go under, and wake up in a cell. Or with Laura’s handlers at your bedside. No hospitals.

You hide your hands under your coat and trudge off through the snow, into the scar. You guess there’s little point anymore – no one could spot the scales through all the burns – but you don’t want attention of any kind right now. What you want is to be home. Michigan, years ago, preferably, but the scar and your hovel and the Mutie Bunch will have to do for now.

As you pass under the long, leering shadows of the scar, you wonder if this is how everyone ends up the way they do. One-eyed Odin Joe and Toothless Bill and Scrawny Sam and the rest of the sorry lot. The old hobos, the old guard, the tramps with the gnarled faces and the missing teeth and the spittle everywhere. Is this how they become what they are? They’re young and fit one day and working to get back, back to real life, and then suddenly something happens. Something that destroys them forever, leaving only ruins.

You hope not. You really hope not.

You don’t know how long the walk is. Eventually you make it back to the crumbling apartment block and slouch your way in, cringing as you ascend the burnt-out stairs, revealing bruises you didn’t yet know you had. You make it to the door – you hear chatter die away as you pass the threshold, and the smell of boiling chicken excites your nostrils – and drag yourself in.

You’re greeted by a unified front of horrified stares. You guess you look pretty awful.

>[X] Sit down, get food. >[X] “I think I need a doctor or something.” >[X] “Looks like you’re not going back...”

They’re silent.

You pull yourself over to the stove and sit down, your battered limbs complaining all the way. The scent of food has you hooked by the nose. The smell is… it’s not great, but you don’t care. You need to eat. You reach out to grab a fork and a gasp implodes the silence – you’re not sure who it is. You don’t care.

“John! Your hands!” That’s Noriko.

“Yeah.” You say, flatly, trying and failing to pick up one of those stupid plastic forks. Your fingers move like sausages and feel little else but the sharp, painful prickle of air dancing across undone flesh. “I think they need a doctor or something.”

Eventually you give up.

“I guess you’re not going back to that place after all, Layla.” Hah. Yes, this is all very funny. Your hands are mangled unusable fleshsticks and that’s also funny.

Laura eases herself to the floor beside you, picking up your discarded fork.

“What happened?”

>[X] Talk about it later. >[X] “I guess the second floor mostly exploded.” >[X] Cliff notes on the situation. >[X] Write in.

“I guess the second floor mostly exploded.”

Yeah… Sacred Tree, it seems, will be out of business for some time. Which is something it may in fact share in common with you, if your hands are as bad as they seem.

“Look…” You begin, turning the night over in your head. The psychedelic hell-ride of wrestling with that thing bleeds into everything else, soiling the crevices of your brain. Every time you think back to that grin, or those barbed impressions of Laura’s eyes, or the wet, cloying sensation of clawing your(?) way inside yourself, you feel like the memories are overstepping their bounds somehow – tearing their way out and infesting everything else, turning everything dim and painful. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Laura forks out a few strips of chicken for you, placing them on a paper plate. She starts tugging her gloves off.

“It… it was the ghost, right?” Inquires Layla, her voice a tentative whisper, as if speaking of it will bring it down on you. Again.

You shake your head.

“It was something worse. And it wasn’t the kids – it was just, I don’t know…” Its voice echoes through all the black spots in your brain. God. “…eating them, or something.”

“Dude, I think you need to get a hospital.” Interjects Kevin. “Like, now.”

Noriko nods.

“Those are second degree at least, John. You need to get that treated.”

>[ ] No hospitals. >[ ] Write in.

“No hospitals.” You mutter.

Noriko is the first to protest, leaning in over the stove and frowning deeply at your baked limbs.

“John, just look at your hands, they’re”–

“No hospitals!” You nearly hiss, clenching your firsts – much to your own displeasure. You take a moment to just breathe. “Look, even if they don’t ship me off to a camp, and even if they actually treat me, we don’t have nearly enough money to pay for a visit to the ER. I know this may come as a surprise to you guys, but there are downsides to being homeless.”

You let a little bile slip into your voice at the end there. You honestly – you honestly feel like you’re talking to children, sometimes. In a way you are. They haven’t lived this life like you have. They don’t know just how fucked up and sick the flatscans can get.

An uncomfortable, vaguely belligerent silence settles in.

Laura slides the plate toward you, offering you her gloves.

“Put these on. You can eat with your hands.”

>[X] Accept. >[X] Write in.

“Thanks.” You mumble, a little taken a back at yourself, and maybe a little winded by the silence.

Getting them on is hell – feels like razors against your skin (or lack of skin, you guess) – but they help you manoeuvre the steaming strips of chicken from the plate to your mouth. They’re grossly lacking in the salt department and somebody hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the spices, but your stomach doesn’t care.

“They are somewhat right.” Laura notes, quietly. “If your accelerated healing cannot handle the strain, a professional will be required to treat this. Under coercion, if necessary.”

Right. Urgh. You’re not sure you like the idea of… well, actually, you’re not sure what she’s implying there. You guess she means you might have to kidnap a doctor.

“Alright.” You sigh. “Sorry about snapping back there. I feel like shit and I have to work tomorrow, hands or no hands. And believe me – people can be some real assholes.”

>[X] Discuss something other. >[X] Finish up your food and rest.

“Right… I know your night wasn't as interesting as mine, but humour me anyway.”

You finish your food as they spin a rousing tale out of getting home, dousing Kevin’s swollen eye with snow, and sort of milling about before putting food on. Eventually you find yourself swooning in and out of proper cognisance, and decided to call it for the night, slouching over to the sofa and pulling a duvet over yourself.

You don’t sleep so much as drift. The pain in your hands is too sharp, too grating, to let you seep away into the miasma of nothingness that waits beyond dreaming.

So instead you balance between waking and sleeping, the world not shrinking way, but becoming cloudy and indistinct, like so much mist. Shadows move on the edge of perception, dancing from form to form. There are sounds but they stretch over time and space, sometimes shrinking, sometimes swelling, something bursting out into thousands of tiny, muttering pinpricks. Your sister sits beside you, or maybe Laura, or maybe nobody. In your more conscious moments you assert to yourself that this must be where the dead go when there is nowhere else – not memory, or thought, but not action or substance or flesh. You imagine that you can feel them, close but ever fading, seething desperately against the walls of the universe.

Eventually, you find yourself being shaken, the material world clamouring into focus around you. The light has changed. Kevin kneeling beside the sofa, periodically tugging at your shoulder. Your mouth feels funny.

>[X] “My mouth feels funny.”

“My mouth feels funny.” You declare, as this is important information.

Also, your mouth does feel really funny. Just talking is… weird.

“Okay…” Kevin seems to stop to consider it for a brief few seconds. “That’s nice, I guess. But it’s time to get up. Work and stuff, right?”

You groan, flailing half-blindly for purchase. Eventually to get yourself up, and feel at your jaw experimentally. Something’s off. You can stop licking the inside of your own mouth, like you quite don’t recognize it or something.

You check your hands, and are surprised to find that they’re not… that… bad. They still hurt, and the skin is covered in vicious, reddened scars, but the fact that there’s any skin at all is an immense improvement over last night. They move better, too.

“I was, uh, thinking of tagging along today.” Kevin says, interrupting himself with a quiet yawn. “I figured, hey, why not go get the same job? We’re almost squared with that Creeper guy, right, so what’s the harm?”

Huh. You hadn’t thought of that.

>[X] “You sure your powers won’t be a problem?” >[X] “My mouth feels funny.”

Still, you have your reservations.

“You sure your powers won’t be a problem?”

He shrugs.

“Well, I wear gloves.” A tired grin stretches across his face. “I mean, unless chucking newspapers actually involves lots of people going out of their way to touch up your face, I shouldn’t be looking at any skin contact.”

This is true. Nobody wants to touch the hoboflesh (you don’t blame them. They don’t know where you’ve been, but you do). Kevin is a relatively benign and, admittedly, kind of pretty hobo, but a hobo nonetheless. Which means that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he might as well be covered in bubonic puss.

“My mouth feels funny…” You repeat, feeling at the back of your teeth with your tongue. Something is definitely amiss. “Anyhow, I guess you’re right.”

You heave yourself off the sofa. Noriko is still asleep, as is Layla. Laura appears to be… doing yoga? Something that involves stretching.

“Cool. Your hands look better, by the way.”

>[X] “Yeah. They feel better too.” >[X] “My mouth feels funny.” >[X] Write in.

“Yeah, they”– You pause, rooting around for the source of the funky in your mouth. –“They feel better, too. I guess I heal faster than I thought.”

Another $60 every day or so certainly wouldn’t go amiss. There is one problem, however, that nearly slipped your mind.

“What about that 7/11 trouble last night? You’re sure you weren’t on camera?”

Argh what is that wrong feeling? Are you lisping slightly?

“I’m pretty sure Nori blew them out, man.” Oh, right, that makes sense. “Everything electrical in that store pretty much went up in smoke. I guess someone could recognize me, but most of those guys should be in hospital, right?”

“True.” He doesn’t really stand out, either. There’s no doubt a police report floating about right now with his description all over it, but ‘dark haired teen’ isn’t exactly going to bring the furious gaze of the law bearing down upon you.

“My mouth feels fu– ack!”

You wheel about as a set of small fingers grasp a hold of your jaw, manoeuvring you around and bringing you face to face with Laura. You guess she’s not doing her stretchy thing anymore.

She peers into your mouth, her eyes set into a vaguely annoyed expression.

“You’ve regained a pair of teeth on the left side of your mouth.”

Oh.

>[X] “Oh. Cool.” >[X] “That’s weird. Why now?”

“Oh.” You pretty much have to force it out. Laura’s grip is surprisingly strong for such a tichy small person. “Cool.”

Still, this does beg the question…

“That’s kinda weird. Why now?”

She pauses in consideration – though, you can’t help but notice, doesn’t let go of your jaw. Kevin appears to have stepped back in a very much “you on your own bro” fashion, giving the two of you a wide berth.

“Perhaps your healing factor has accelerated to accommodate your injured state.” She smiles, very faintly. Maybe a little wryly. “I suppose we can add another question to the mystery that is John Green.”

Hah.

>[X] “You know, if you don’t let go of my face, I can’t leave.” >[X] “So, uh, Kevin, I think we should just wait a day or two. Cool?”

“You know, if you don’t let go of my face, I can’t leave.”

Her fingers detach slowly.

“Sides, I have another mystery to unravel.” You say, partly to yourself. She raises an eyebrow.

You are, of course, referring to the Mystery of Peter Parker, probable mutant and Daily Bugle intern.

“So, uh, Kevin…” You turn to face him, slipping Laura’s gloves back on. You gotta find a new pair. “I think should just wait a day or two. Cool?”

He shrugs.

“Guess so. I don’t exactly mind going back to sleep.”

…That almost makes you want to change your mind. But you don’t, and after saying goodbye, you head out. Checking your watch, you see that it’s 6:07 – plenty of time to make your way over.

>[X] Go straight to the Bugle. >[X] Stop for a quick breakfast.

The snow seems to have let up for now.

You head out toward the Bugle, stopping occasionally to appreciate how truly tired you are. It takes you a little longer than usual to get out of the scar, and you’re not far into the squawking bustle of New York before you find yourself growing weary of the crowds. You felt alright when you left, but maybe it’s mental fortitude you’re lacking right now, and the constant jabber of the city is pressing in on it.

Why couldn’t your hyperactive X-gene have spat out something really useful? Like teleportation. Right now you’d give pretty much anything short of your dick to just click your heels and be at the Bugle.

You stop briefly to grab a sandwich, eating it on your way. You barely taste it but it fills a hole.

>Hunger Level: 2 >Current Funds: $80.50

Eventually you find yourself, once again, before the doors to the Bugle. You try to pull yourself up out of the permanent slouch you seem to be adopting and walk in.

>[X] Ask after Peter.

“Hey, Vanessa!” You approach the front desk, waving a little. She glances up at you.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah.” You hate doing this. You’ve explained it already, but it just seems… weird. “Know if Parker’s around? I was supposed to meet him today.”

“Oh, no, dear.” Urk. You hope you didn’t, like, out him unintentionally or some shit. Or drive him away. That’d be ultimate irony. “He doesn’t usually come in today. You’ll have to catch up tomorrow.”

You breathe out a very covert sight of relief.

“Well, thanks.”

You wave again and head off, picking up your stack and making your way to the exit.

Though… the thought hits you, just as you make to leave, that you could still check out the Bugle’s employee information. Find out where you can track him down to. It wouldn’t be hard.

>[X] Go hand out papers. >[X] Check today’s headline. >[X] Write in.

You pause briefly on your way out.

“Hey, uh, one more thing.”

Vanessa glances back up from… whatever it is desk people do when nobody’s shouting about appointments or whatever.

“Mind telling him I was around?”

She smiles lopsidedly and nods.

You say thanks and head off, mostly just glad that you didn’t scare Parker away from the Bugle. You heft up your stack, the weight pressing down on the sore flesh under your gloves, prompting a cringe or two, and head towards your spot.

You make it over there in a little under half an hour, taking your usual place near the mouth of the station, where the storm of morning commuters is already brewing. As you untie the string keeping your pile together, you glance at today’s headline and your jaw slackens.

“MUTANT HERO SAVES ORPHANAGE”

You’re not fancy enough for coffee, so you mostly just spit out air (maybe a little saliva). Holy shit.

You read on. The article doesn’t mention demons, but it does say that a ‘dangerous superhuman’ – possibly a psychic of some – attacked Sacred Tree orphanage late last night. Apparently, this nefarious villain was thwarted by a mysterious Good Samaritan, most likely a mutant.

“He distracted the monster while the children got to safety. I’m almost certain he was a mutant.” Says Sarah Haller, 22-year-old medical student volunteering at the orphanage.

“He had funny ears.” Are the words of one of the orphanage’s tenants, whose name has been redacted.

Apparently, this mysterious hero wasn't wearing a mask, but was willing to put his life on the line either way. His description has been handed over to the police and they are continuing their investigation of the incident.

God damn. You hope other papers have been as generous with their vocabulary. Still, you’ll have to go over it in detail later, after you’re done here.

>Roll for PAPER PUSHING YAAAAAAY. >D20 Rolled 15

>18 >great success

Time flies.

The initial spree of commuters keeps up longer than usual, and you find yourself almost struggling to keep pace. By the time the morning rush is over with you’re down to your last few papers, and it’s not long before the steady ebb and flow of everyday travellers diminish their number to just one.

One, which, current events being what they are, you’ve decided to keep to yourself.

Tucking the final paper away under your jacket, you glance at your watch.

8:30. Record time, pretty much. You guess the villainous Paperstack was no match for a big time Mutant Hero.

Though, that said, you can’t help but wonder why the Bugle would put such a… positive spin on events. They’re constantly lashing into every cape, cowl, or masked mystery man to so much as put a foot wrong in New York. You’re pretty sure you did quite a few things wrong – someone like Iron Man would’ve done a way better job, and the paper never cuts him and slack.

>[X] Go get paid. >[X] Go shopping for gloves.

Gotta get that money.

You make your way back to the Bugle, a little more wary of cops than usual, but feeling something vaguely like a spark of self-worth sputtering up somewhere in your chest. Thank you, J Jonah Jameson. You are quite possibly not such a bad guy.

You get there a minute or two before nine, collect your money, and head off.

>Current Funds: $140.50

Remembering that the gloves you’re wearing are loaners – horrible disgusting loaners that you’ve filled with the vile offscourings of burnt-up mutiehand – you take a short diversion along the local high street, stopping in at one of the various thrift stores you’ve become accustomed to during your time in New York.

You drop in to one of the smaller places (less distance to run. Marginally less, but still less) and start sifting about for a nice(ish, you’ll definitely settle for niceish) set of gloves.

>RANDOM MOTHERUCKING EVENT ROLL >gimme that D20 boys Rolled 2

>2

Yeah – you grab a pair of fluffy, thoroughly padded gloves hanging around one of the shelves – these’ll do. Not too thick, not too thin. Just about right. You might’ve gone for something with a little more weight to it, but you’re not entirely sure just how much material your… your Spider-Man hands… work through. You don’t want to suddenly find that you’re grounded at exactly the wrong time.

Now to pick out a set for Laura. And maybe something Noriko can cover that ridiculous neon hair of hers with? You don't like that just being out in the open.

You crouch down, checking some of the lower shelves. Behind you, the bell beside the door rings once, twice, thrice.

Sifting through the old tat, you find a bobble hat that looks just about dumb enough to be perfect, and a slimmer pair of gloves to replace the ones you’ve turned into charnel pits. You’re figuring out how much you want to spend when your ears perk up, catching a few select, highly unfavourable words:

“…our money, guy. If you don’t, things could get pretty tense in here. You’re catching that drift, right?”

The voice is young. And confident. You can smell adrenaline soaking through the air.

“Look, I’m not even the owner, I’m a volunteer. This a charity shop, we don’t”–

He’s cut off. You hear the quite distinct sound of a scuffle – short one, probably just some grabbing of collars. Petty intimidation, it sounds like.

“Well,” the first voice again. “Consider it an act of charity to yourself when you’re digging our money out of that register.”

>[X] Listen. >[X] Turn around.

You shift subtly, trying not to make yourself conspicuous.

For a moment you consider fading out, but these places have security cameras, don’t they? You have your hood and your shades, but with police on the lookout for a mutant matching your description (even if, by some miracle of the human spirit, they just want to pat you on the back), you’re not sure how many chances you want to be taking.

Pretending to be interested in whatever crap happens to be strung across the racks in the middle of store, you glance up behind your thankfully entirely reflective glasses.

There are three young figures clustered by the desk. The guy at the till is in the clutches of one of them – a tall, dark-haired guy in getup that honestly makes him look a little like he should be pushing Carrie around a few days before she goes nuclear at the prom. It’s just that specific look shared by bullies, jocks and assholes throughout modern (actually, scratch that, this might be a bit of a throwback) media. It’s actually a little unbelievable that anyone really dresses like this.

He’s accompanied by a pretty blonde girl wearing bright pink shades and more bracelets than a small Pharaoic dynasty, probably a year or two younger than you. She looks thoroughly bored.

The guy beside her… is huge. More than huge, actually. He’s colossal. You're pretty sure his arms are thicker than your waist. You can’t see him particularly clearly, as he’s covered up beneath a jumper of possibly the largest size on the market, but it’s safe to say that he’s the hugest, swolest human being you’ve ever come across.

You appear to be seeing some kind of shakedown. Someone is shaking down a thrift store.

Seriously?

"...You really want to be listening to Jules, man." Notes the girl, a sing-song quality in her voice. "He's on, like, a one second fuse. One little thing and then... tickticktick..."

She cups her hands, and then tracks them outward in mimicry of an explosion.

"...boom!"

>[X] Intervene

Man, this is just sad. And incredibly inopportune, too. Your hands actually feel a great deal better than they did just this morning, but they still sting. You’re not sure you want to punch Mr. Growth Hormones over there with your fists feeling like bagels left out in the sun.

You clear your voice loudly.

The Fonz of the 21st century turns around, loosening his grip on the unlucky volunteer, and raises an eyebrow at you. He’s younger than you thought he was – seventeen, probably, maybe even sixteen. He’s just tall for his age. His gigantic companion shifts towards you too, but only slightly, leaving the face that hides under that ecliptic hood of his a mystery. You’re not sure you can smell any sweat on him, or hormones, or adrenaline. In fact… you’re not sure he even has a heartbeat.

The girl stares at you through half-lidded eyes, and blows out a bright sphere of gum. Oh my God could she be any more 90’s?

“Okay, guys… why are you robbing a thrift store?” It’s a valid question. It’s a really valid question. “I mean, just, why? Why not rob Forever 21 or some place with overpriced goods that sell for lots of money? You

know who this store caters to? Me. And all the money I have to my name is the twenty in my back pocket.”

This sounds vaguely snarky, doesn’t it? Maybe you absorbed more from Spider-Man than running along walls. God, you hope not, you don’t want to turn into a midget.

The apparent leader of the group shoots you a look of utter disdain. You’re used to disdain, but you get the impression that your hobo-ness isn’t actually a factor here, and you’d be getting the same stare no matter your yearly income.

“This isn’t a robbery.” He turns back to the guy behind the desk, who shrinks away slightly. “We protect this place from dangerous mutants. Don’t we?”

His companions giggle. The big guy sounds like he’s compacting trash through his oesophagus.

“If we weren’t around, I get the feeling that bunch of scary mutants would just trash the whole place. But we are around, so that doesn’t happen. And if the owner wants it to keep not happening, we have to be paid for our services. Sounds fair, right?”

The gum bubble pops, as if to mark his words.

>THREAD 22: END

Thread #23 You are John James Green, mutant vagrant.

So. A giant, a background girl from a 90’s pop video, and The Fonz all waltz into a thrift store. There’s probably a joke waiting to be discovered in there, but things took a turn for the unfunny when they start throwing their weight around, so you intervened. What happens?

The apparent leader of the group shoots you a look of utter disdain. You’re used to disdain, but you get the impression that your hobo-ness isn’t actually a factor here, and you’d be getting the same stare no matter your yearly income.

“This isn’t a robbery.” He turns back to the guy behind the desk, who shrinks away slightly. “We protect this place from dangerous mutants. Don’t we?”

His companions giggle. The big guy sounds like he’s compacting trash through his oesophagus.

“If we weren’t around, I get the feeling that bunch of scary mutants would just trash the whole place. But we are around, so that doesn’t happen. And if the owner wants it to keep not happening, we have to be paid for our services. Sounds fair, right?”

The gum bubble pops, as if to mark his words.

>[X] “…Do you guys work for Creeper, or are you just edging in on his turf?”

So this is about protection money. Well, last you heard, this part of Queens was more or less paid up to a certain mutant with inhumanly low noticeability and a tenuous regard for personal space. You doubt he bothers with thrift stores of all things, but... well, this kind of thing is a matter of principle for people like him.

“…Do you guys work for Creeper, or are you just edging in on his turf?”

Fonzie turns back around, brow furrowed. You don’t have to be listening in on his pulse to tell that this guy has a very quick temper, and that it’s being edged towards its limits.

“The hell’re you talking about?” Oh. No comprende? Maybe he’s new to the city, or just new to the whole criminal element. “Hammerhead town stops like six blocks up. This place is open.”

Right. Sometimes you forget that, to most of the city, Creeper is just an urban myth.

Roll Persuasion. DC15. +1 modifier Rolled 13+1

>14 >faaaailure

He brushes you off like he’s Caesar or some shit, turning back to the volunteer behind the counter. He affords you one last glance, before looking up at his humongous friend.

“Santo, get this guy outta here, would you?”

The big guy’s massive hood shudders – you presume that must be a nod – and he plods towards you at a deliberate, menacingly slow pace. A hand gloved in what you’re pretty sure is mostly a load of scarves tied together reaches out for your shoulder.

“Come on, little dude.” His voice sounds like granite. Italian granite? That’s new. “Let’s not make this awkward.”

>[X] “I can leave by myself.” >[X] “Just so you know, your boss is a massive tool and he’s going to get you killed.”

“I can let myself out.”

You brush his hand off. Or, rather, you make a valiant attempt, but find that he’s about as solid as he sounds – you might as well be trying to brush off a brick wall. You half-walk and are half-pushed towards the door, stepping out into the winter cold.

Before you head off, it strikes you to turn back and look the guy over. You’re closer now, so his face is clearer – or it would be, if it wasn’t mostly covered in bandages. You’re guessing that whatever ‘gift’ the x- gene imposed upon him, it wasn’t the friendly kind. You sigh heavily, and give in to the urge to get the last word in.

“Just so you know, your boss is a massive tool and he’s going to get you killed.”

‘Santo’ pauses, and there’s a sound like rocks churning under his giant sweater. A huge finger reaches out and prods at your chest, leaving it very lightly bruised and you wishing you’d kept quiet.

“Listen, little dude, Julian takes care of us, so watch what you say.” He pokes you again. Ow. This guy doesn’t seem to know his own strength. “I’d take his word over some random flatscan’s anyday.”

>[X] “I’m no flatscan.” >[X] Write in.

Wow. Sometimes the universe just loves to take a massive ironic dump right in your face. Apparently getting shit for being a mutie was getting kinda predictable, so now you’re getting shit for not being a mutie. How great is that?

You can’t help but snarl involuntarily.

“I’m no flatscan.” You tip your shades, revealing a swirl of luminous blues and greens where your irises should be. “And I’m telling you this because Creeper keeps an eye out for people like us. Keep this up and he’ll either use you up or make a big fat example out of you.”

The giant pauses, visibly uncertain – you may not be able to smell his sweat or hear his pulse, but his posture is human enough. After a second or two, he finally speaks up, shifting back toward the store interior. A heavy hand falls on your shoulder, apparently with the intent of keeping you in place.

“Hey, Julian, this guy’s… uh…” He makes an attempt to lower his voice, but it’s mostly ineffectual. Still, it's the thought that counts, you suppose.

“…he’s one of us.”

>[X] Make like a tree

“Yeah… I’m off.”

You muster up some of your unexpected strength and shove the guy’s hand off you. In the brief instant that he’s off-balance you step back and fade out of visibility, taking a few paces to the side. You’ve given these guys enough food for thought, and you don’t want to be around if there’s gonna be any kind of police presence on the scene.

Especially not with your description floating around in association with a burnt-out orphanage.

“Whoa…” The giant looks both ways quickly, before seemingly giving up.

His friends squeeze out beside him, the Fonz-looking one pretty clearly stuffing a wad of cash in his pocket.

“You were saying, Santo?”

“Oh, yeah… he’s a mutant, man. He just teleported or something.”

The news affects a pretty immediate change in the guy. His aloof expression falters for a second, briefly racing through a spectrum of shock, anger, and deliberation. Eventually he composes himself again and scratches his head, taking obvious care not to disturb his (admittedly) impeccable hair.

“…Who did he say this turf belonged to?”

“Uh… Creepo, or something.”

“Creeper.” Corrects the girl.

“Creeper…” The apparent leader clenches his fists. Yep, that’s some short-ass temper right there. “Tabitha, go get Alvers and Brian.”

“What about Cess?”

“Cessily’s busy.” He grins, and motions for his gargantuan friend to follow him as he makes to leave. “Looks like the Hellions have competition.”

Man, you don’t like the sound of this…

Well, at least you got a free set of gloves out of the whole thing.

>Current Time: 9:28 >Current Funds: $140.50

>[X] Go pick up some prepaid phones. You’ve been meaning to for a while.

You check the time quickly and decide there’s little point in heading back quite yet. You’ve had the idea of picking some a bunch of prepaid phones for a while – should make it easier to keep in touch, and if you’re not putting too much faith in your abilities you can charge ‘em with your fingers.

You head further down the highstreet, turning in at an alley to slip back into visibility before picking out a phone shop.

You cross the threshold and immediately feel distinctly uncomfortable. There’s a mother and her kid picking out some slick touch screen whatever on one end of the shop, and a bunch of kids all goth’d up by the central racks. Everyone’s very, very clean. Cameras at the door, and at by the counter.

You swallow, your throat suddenly feeling a little dry.

>roll to not spaghetti mutant-style >DC13 >+1 Courage modifier

>10 >FAILURE >stop rolling like such a bitch, JJ >jeez JJ

>jeez

You peruse the place’s wares, constantly glancing over your shoulder. You can’t help it. Some places are just less hobo-friendly that others, y’know? It’s like walking all up into a Hilton and realizing that you’re in your pyjamas. And your pyjamas haven’t been washed and you’ve been dumpster diving in them, and oh yeah, they have a hole in the back, right where it counts.

“Mom? Mom? That guy just disappeared.”

You freeze up. Slowly, with dreadful certainty, you turn around to find a pair of eyes staring at you. The remaining moisture in your mouth dries up instantly. You feel yourself flicker, drawing more eyes.

“Dude!” Mutters one of the teenagers. “Check out Dracula in the shades.”

You lick the back of your teeth. Fangs are out. You can feel your claws just itching to push through your brand new gloves, too.

>[X] Fade out, leave.

Yeah, these aren’t the kind of stares you like.

“Hey…” An out-of-town accent – somewhere southern, marginally closer to home than the flavourless NY drone – catches your ears, coming from there the goths are clustered up. “Are those teeth real?”

You’re on the spot here. You tell yourself you’ve got every right to be there, that you should just pick up your items and bring them over to the cashier, there go those survival instincts, getting all up in your head and biting at your heels. The urge to vanish overwhelms you.

“Is that accent real?”

You fade into invisibility, eliciting a chorus of gasps from around the room. Shit.

You skulk out, trying not to make much of a sound. Better to just let them assume you’ve teleported or whatever, like those other guys did.

Looks like someone else will have to deal with the communications issue.

>[X] Head home.

You shrug, unable to remain entirely exasperated with yourself for long. It’s not like you expect much.

Better head home and touch down with the gang. You guess you have a headline to show them, and you’ve been meaning to get to work on Noriko’s powers. You know Kevin’s been practicing on bits of plywood, but she seems to have taken a… “it doesn’t exist if I don’t talk about it”… approach to the problem.

Which is kinda troubling.

You head home, making sure to fade in and out of visibility as you get closer to the scar.

Eventually, you pass beyond the skeletal threshold and into the untarnished, snowy wasteland. A few minutes later the apartment looms up ahead of you. You head up the stairs and find yourself sniffing involuntarily.

You glance up, coaxed on by the familiar scent.

Noriko is standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at you. She has a copy of The Enquirer in one hand, and the Times in the other. Even from at the first step, the headlines are clear as day to you:

“MUTANT BRAWL DESTROYS ORPHANAGE” “MUTANT BLAZE! ORPHANAGE DESTROYED BY INHUMAN MACHINATIONS!”

Oh, man. >[X] “I like mine better.” (show her the Bugle)

“I like mine better.” You say, unfurling your copy of the Bugle.

What else can you do? It’s not like you’re gonna be barging into the Times’ editorial office and getting them to put out a public apology. You’d just get another headline further along the lines of “MUTANTS HATE YOUR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH (THANKS OBAMA)”. And the Enquirer has been a lost cause since before you can remember – ain’t nothing gonna stop them peddling their bullshit.

Noriko brightens up a little (literally, she discharges a fleeting halo of neon blue electricity) and cranes in to read as you advance up the steps.

“Whoa. That doesn’t look half bad.”

“Yeah.” You hand the paper over to her as you pass by. “It’s pretty accurate, actually.”

Minus the demon(?) and stuff. But you’re not even so sure that any of that was what it seemed, so you can’t blame ‘Sarah Haller’ and the reporter tasked with translating her story into print for missing that particular beat.

You trail on into the apartment, just in time to see Kevin disintegrating a table leg.

“Almost.” Says Layla, sitting beside him. “That was like nine seconds.”

“Yeah…” They both look up. “Oh, hey, it’s the mutant menace. Hide the flatscan women guys, he’s gonna take our jerbs.”

Your eyebrow twitches. Hah. Yes, funny.

>[X] “Yes hilarious you are of such sharp wit Kevin.” >[X] “How’s that practice coming?”

“Yes hilarious you are of such sharp wit Kevin.”

Layla whistles. You roll your eyes.

“It’s a gift.”

“Huh.” You sit down, glancing around for Laura. You guess she’s off running or something. “Speaking of gifts, how’s that practice coming?”

You were hoping for that to dig a little into Noriko, but she just sits down on the sofa nearby, reading through your meteoric rise to fame. Kevin shrugs and scratches the back of his head a little, cringing slightly.

“Well… okay, I guess. I can hold it in longer now, but it always gets past me in the end.”

“What’re you talking about?” Interrupts Layla. “You’ve gotten way better!”

He grins sheepishly.

“Yeah, uh, maybe…” The grin fades. He stares down at his bare hands. “I dunno. Sometimes I feel like my power wants to be used. Like it’s actually fighting against me. It’s like… it needs to be fed, or something.”

>[X] “Hey, where’s Laura?” >[X] “Met some newbie mutants trying to muscle in on Creepers turf.”

O-kay. You think an immediate change of subject is in order.

“Hey, so, I met some newbie mutants trying to muscle in on Creepers turf. Anyone of you ever heard of the Hellions?” The question is met by a full house of very much nonplussed stares. You guessed as much, but, hey, no harm in asking. “Hope this doesn't get too ugly, but just in case, keep your heads down even deeper when you’re out and about. I’m smelling trouble.”

“Isn’t this a good thing?” Asks Kevin. “I mean, Creeper’s an asshole, right?”

You shrug. You guess he has a point, but, other hand, you’ve no idea how these ‘Hellions’ intend on going about their business. They don’t seem connected enough to be in on the drug scene, so that’s a plus, but they’re young and reckless, and by the looks of them they have a fair bit of power to throw around. Creeper is a slimy horrorshow, but he’s quiet and careful. He doesn’t bring the MCA down on the whole neighbourhood.

“Yeah, he is… but war means collateral. Where’s Laura, by the way?”

Behind you, you hear Noriko set aside the paper.

“Actually, that’s something we have to talk about.” Oh? “We’ve got trouble closer to home.”

“What, Laura?” You ask, your tone taking a turn for the incredulous. She’s been pretty much nothing but chill.

“Nah.” Replies Kevin, waving the idea off. “Food’s been going missing again. We’re certain that someone’s taking it now, so Laura’s checking out the surrounding ruins.”

>[X] All tree.

FFFFFFFF-you knew it. Your fists clench of their own accord, fangs pushing through gum inside your mouth. You fucking knew something was up!

You let out an exasperated sigh and lean back against the sofa arm.

“Dammit. Do we even know when the stuff went missing?”

Kevin nods.

“Yeah. I had my suspicions, so I’ve been checking every hour. The stuff just vanished somewhere between eight and nine.” Just in time for breakfast, huh? How very pleasant that must be. “Like, right out from under our noses.”

Urgh, this just… complicates things a whole lot. You were really, really hoping you were wrong. But, no.

You pull yourself up and head for the door. No rest for the wicked, it seems.

“I should probably go help. My nose is almost as good as hers. See you in a bit, I guess.”

"See you, dude."

>[X] Look for Laura first.

You stop by the door to breathe in Laura’s scent, untangling it from the other aromas lingering about the apartment.

Luckily, it’s not too hard – she’s pretty distinct, and the cold kills much of the ‘background radiation’ you’d usually have to deal with. Kevin’s there, of course, instantly recognizable by how dim he is – you think he kills most of the constituents of smell on contact. Noriko has the faint aurora of ozone in her nasal footsteps, and Layla stands out simply by being closer to the baseline. Laura... has more of an animal aspect to her than the others, were you pressed to describe it.

Filtering out what you don’t need, you press on out into the snow.

>roll Perception >DC15 >+4 modifier

>20 >GREAT SUCCESS

You latch on to her scent quickly enough and follow it through the snow. It takes you about half an hour into the ruins, bobbling and weaving through a short procession of shattered buildings. You pass through the nearby school and on into what was once an adventure playground, heading on through into the neighbouring apartments.

The place is barely a skeleton. You’re wondering just what the hell must’ve hit it when Laura emerges from behind one of the naked supports (which now bears up nothing but air and a little snow), turning her gaze towards you.

“John.” She states. “You came looking?”

You jog up to her, ducking under the twisted, half-melted metal wires that crisscross the blasted structure.

“I came to help.”

“I see.” She turns back to the rubble, gazing out into the middle-distance, her nostrils flaring occasionally. “It’s an elusive scent. It appears to just trail off and then reappear elsewhere. Pinning down a coherent route of transit is… difficult.”

She seems almost disappointed in herself.

>[X] “Well, if we put our noses together, maybe we can make sense of it.” >[X] Write in.

“Well, if we put our noses together, maybe we can make sense of it.”

She nods.

“Some help would be appreciated.” She seems to loosen up somewhat after saying it. You’re not entirely sure why, but her posture definitely changes. “Your other senses might provide insights that my nose does not.”

“Yeah, let’s see what heatvision has to say about this incoherent transit whatever.”

She smiles very faintly, though it vanishes from your perception as you shift your vision out of the normal range.

“Heatvision? That’s another new one.”

Oh, yeah. You didn’t tell anyone about that.

>roll Perception again >DC17 >+4 modifier >+1 for being smart

>24 >LIMIT BREAK

Laura’s right – this scent really doesn’t make any sense. It clings to the surrounding beams of metal, but when you make your way just a little further on, it cuts out without warning. It’s kinda jarring, actually.

She leads you back on through the wreckage, to one of the other spots, in the hopes that your other senses will pick something up. As luck would have it, they do. It doesn’t happen immediately, but after

investigating a few isolated speckles of scent, you find yourselves under the open roof of a burnt-out library, little left on the shelves but ash. Here, the scent is accompanied by a heat signature – an angry, violet-red pulsing in the air beside one of the bookcases, and then again a few meters on, where the smell suddenly cuts out.

Building on the small revelation, you check out a few other spots. It takes you a while – almost an hour, actually – but eventually you find another such spot in the back of a ruined Wal-Mart. Its hotter here; fresher. Roughly an hour and a half later, another incident pops up further back, near the school, this only remaining as only a faint, subtle glow.

You take a brief rest amidst the rubble to ease your legs, until Laura determines that there is a clear trail forming, and near-bodily drags you off your haunches.

She’s right. By searching within the vicinity of these coronal flares, you find increasingly fresher, hotter incidences. Soon it becomes just a matter of time.

Eventually, you make your way into the lopsided mess of a once-apartment complex, turned almost fully on its side and leaning into its partially-shattered twin. The scent is everywhere here – all over the veritable dunes of rubble that lead up to the half-submerged balconies.

>[X] Fade, head in.

You nod to Laura in a manner that you assume is conspiratorial, and let yourself fade away from visibility.

You pad your way up the mound of debris, taking care not to disturb any waiting avalanches. Whoever lives here must have cojones of pure, unspoiled steel – the place looks like it could come down at literally any second. Laura follows a short while in your wake, your ears perking up at her occasional sniff – she’s following you by scent.

You open your nose for the freshest trace of your quarry. A whole lot of dust roils through your senses, swirling like chaff in your enhanced perception of the world, but here the trail is so fresh that you pretty much cannot be deterred.

Reaching one of the balconies, you sling yourself over, taking a moment to acclimate yourself to the skewed surface. Surprisingly, the scent doesn’t lead you further into the maze of relatively-intact apartments, but out toward the mostly broken skeleton-frame that serves as the edge of the structure.

The bands of twisted metal and half-shattered pillars that populate the place remind you of a junglescape – even without much of the walls intact, there’s little visibility, the metallic tangle obscuring the dull grey of winter.

But, though the jumble, you can clearly see that someone’s set up a little tent in a small, caved-in niche, where they’d be protected from the wind.

You press further in, tightening in your breath as you squeeze through an increasingly close webbing of metal. The closer you get, the hotter it is – you’re not bothering to switch to heatvision, but there must be a ton of those ‘hotspots’ dotted around the place.

Eventually, you make you way to the tent, your nose telling you in advance that there’s nobody in.

Whoever calls the place home, they’re about as well off as you are. The sum whole of their possessions in the world appear to be this tent, a flashlight, and a bunch of amenities that you recognize as rightfully belonging to you. That, and a backpack.

You reach out to check it out, when you notice something lying underneath. It’s a photo – a bunch of photos, actually.

Carefully, you pick them up, your eyes chipping away the darkness as you squint to check out their contents.

Your mouth falls open.

It’s you. It’s you and your dad. You must be, like, ten… but it’s definitely you.

>THREAD 23: END

Thread #24 You are John James Green, mutant vagrant.

You’re pretty creeped out by recent developments.

While picking over the ruins surrounding your den for a potential thief, you and Laura have come across a small tent burrowed in the burnt-out shell of a fallen apartment block. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that whoever calls the place home has been stealing from you, but that’s not what has you majorly creeped.

They’ve got a picture of you – young you, back when your dad was around.

You sift around the bed of ratty clothes that pads the ground. Correction – they’ve got pictures of you, plural. It looks like fourteen-you now, probably not six months before you left home. That entire year is a writhing blur, but it looks like it was taken at a birthday party or something.

You swallow. This isn’t, this isn’t something you were expecting.

>Hunger Level: 4 >Current Funds: $140.50

>[X] Check the backpack you found.

This feels immensely wrong. You can’t help but be a little thankful for having a picture of your dad – you don’t even remember you two getting your photo taken, to be honest – but something about the whole thing sits like an awkward, greasy stone in your stomach.

You tug open the backpack you found in the tent, hoping that it’ll render up something that connects all these uncomfortable little dots. Instead you mostly find… stuff. You can’t really describe it as anything else, collectively, other than ‘stuff’. There’s an old crucifix in there, for one – which you drop immediately,

it being a little jarring when suddenly Jesus is staring at you with those big, opaque wooden eyes of his. Somewhat apologetically, you turn it face-up, and continue going through the bag.

A thermos (empty, unfortunately). A bunch of nail files. A CD player (holy shit, you haven’t seen one of those in ages). A bunch of actual CD’s – power ballad stuff, mostly. A notebook.

Now, a notebook, that’s interesting.

You feel a jolt of electricity wriggle along your fingertips as Laura’s shadow sweeps over you. You look up to see her edging through the tangled infrastructure of the building, breathing deeply from the dusty air.

“This place smells of wet fur.”

Oh. That’s what it is, huh?

>[X] “Can you tell if anyone’s nearby?” >[X] Flip through that notebook.

Now that she mentions it, that stuff is… pretty omnipresent. You guess the smell just wasn’t a familiar one to you. One more for the catalogue.

“Hey.” You shuffle around to make a little room for Laura. How does anyone even live here, you can’t go like two steps without running into a girder or something. “Can you tell if anyone’s nearby?”

She nods, folding down into a low crouch.

“There is nobody here.”

“Cool.”

You crack open the notebook… and groan loudly, frustration overcoming the need for stealth.

It’s in Spanish. Or something that looks a lot like Spanish.

“What’s wrong?” Asks Laura, her eyes still roving over your immediate surroundings.

>[X] Write in.

You shrug that frustrated shrug that’s more about getting the world to let up off your back than demonstrating chillness. Letting the book hang open, you hand it over to her.

"Desafortunamente, no lo comprendo.” She stares… harder… than usual. “Don't suppose you can read any of this?"

Righting it in her grasp, she gives the first page a quick scan.

“My Spanish is… incomplete.” Still better than yours, you’d guess. “But…”

A moment of expectant silences passes as she flips through a few pages, her eyes crossing each one in long, measured sweeps.

“…This is a personal log.”

“Like a military log?” You interject, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck getting ready to panic.

“No.” She furrows her brow and looks up at you. “A personal log.”

“So, like… a diary?”

“Yes.” She pauses, and seems to consider the term a second. “A diary. It appears to be written a person named ‘Gaby’, who is clearly quite young as of the first instalments. The most common adjectives are ‘food’, ‘bird’, ‘doctor’, ‘train’. They use the name ‘Jesus’ twenty-three times in the first four pages.”

>[X] “Are there… any other words/names that turn up a lot?” >[X] “Maybe we should camp out nearby here.” >[X] Write in.

That… didn’t help. At all.

“Huh. There… any other names that pop up?” You fidget a little, uncomfortable both physically and… something else-ily. “Creeper, maybe?”

Laura raises one eyebrow.

“No.” She eases the book shut and places it down beside her, eyeing you with an awkward level of rigour. “John, why would that be here?”

You sigh and hand her the photos. She turns them over in her fingers, sniffing them occasionally. Eventually, she hands them back.

“I see. Well, Creeper is not present.”

“Right. What about… what about Joshua? Does that turn up at all?”

She stares lengthily.

“No… no Joshua.”

You run your nasty scaly hand through your hair. Well, it was worth a try, you guess.

“Look… I feel like this person is connected to me somehow.” Alternatively, they could just be a seriously devoted stalker. Which is a connection of sorts, but not the kind you're thinking here. “I think we should be, I dunno, camping out nearby for a while.”

Wordlessly, she rises up, picking through the metallic tangle.

“If that is what you want.”

You two eke your way back a few yards, finding a sizable enough mound of rubble to hide behind. It’s not much, but it’s better than just sitting around in someone’s campsite, waiting for them to run right into you. You hunker down in the dim, cold grey of the complex, listening, watching, breathing carefully.

>[X] Converse.

>[Note] There are few things suggested that I'll be working in via more side dialogue

The silence coils around you, nesting uncomfortably over your shoulders. You’re close. You can feel the racing, swarming heat of Laura’s blood radiating through her skin. Every time she breaths out – they’re long, deliberate breaths, perfectly measured, like nearly everything she does – the skin upon your cheek prickles with sudden, vague warmth. You can’t help but constantly want to move, your gaze straying across the broken shapes that litter the complex, etching out the details of everything but what’s right in front of you.

Eventually, you say the first thing to skim atop the surface of your brain. Probably should stop doing that.

“So…” Her eyes flicker up. Resorting to cliché to deal with awkwardness, you clear your throat. “Thanks for, you know, sticking around. Have I said that?”

She’s doing that thing where she watches your mouth rather than your eyes. Weird.

“You’ve mentioned it.”

“Um… yeah…” You grin nervously. “Hey, do you, maybe have any ideas? About this guy?”

Slowly, she shakes her head, keeping her eyes on you all the while. She watches you in silence for a moment, her gaze revealing nothing, before breathing in deeply.

“Do you believe this person is related to you?” She pauses, and seems to squint for a moment. “In a familial fashion, I mean.”

>[x] “I don’t know. Maybe?” >[x] “Well… I don’t think I have any relatives from Spain, so…” >[x] Write in.

You must admit, you’ve thought about it. But how could that even be... how would that possibly work? Your mother and father have been dead for years. You were at your dad’s funeral. You scattered his ashes out over Lake Michigan. He’s gone – he’s the most gone there could ever be. You saw the casket close over your mother’s silent, marble face as they laid her down in the ground. And your sister? You saw a rocket explode in her face. But, still… it nags at you.

Is it a feeling? Or a hope? Both? You’re not sure.

“I don’t know.” You really don’t. “Maybe?”

You cringe at yourself, shifting awkwardly against the concrete. Laura doesn’t budge.

“I don’t think I have any relatives from Spain, so…” You trail off. So, it’s not likely. So, thinking anything of the sort would be wishful thinking. “I… I just don’t know how they could’ve gotten these pictures if we weren’t connected somehow. I just hope it’s some kind of lead, something that would help me find my sister.”

She seems to consider you for a moment. You can’t say what thoughts circulate behind those verdant green eyes, but, eventually, she closes them, as if drawing the curtains on an idea, and draws closer.

You feel your breath quicken as her shape nestles close to yours, her breath pooling in the air between you, her heart counting every other second, close enough that you can imagine each beat jumping out, like an arc of static, and burying itself in your chest.

“I hope so, too.”

The moment stretches on. You talk about things – about Noriko and Kevin. When you tell her you’re concerned about Noriko, she tells you her charge must be building again; that it’s become more noticeable. Eventually you challenge her to another game of tag in the snow, sometime later, and she simply smiles.

Hours pass. Occasionally you glance at your watch, and each time you’re a little bit amazed at how long you’ve been waiting. Outside, between the tangle of concrete and metal, the flecks of grey that mark the sky gradually give way to reds and oranges, and a dim, creeping blue.

Eventually, a noise makes you start slightly. Laura breathes in sharply.

It was nearby, somewhere near the other side of the building. Kind of a… cracklepop, if you had to describe it as anything. Reminds you of a rubber band snapping.

While a firecracker goes off in the background.

>[X] Get closer to the camp. >[X] Write in.

Right, this is it. Time for answers.

Deciding against pretending that you know military hand sign stuff (you did consider it for a second, but… no, no, that’s not a good idea), you lean in a little closer, whispering to Laura that you’re going to try to close in a bit. She nods, and you pull yourself up, fading out of visibility and creeping out around the rubble. Behind you, you hear a quiet, metallic SNIKT.

Huh.

You pad closer, moving slower than ever through the undergrowth of tattered metal out of need for silence. As you pull yourself between a pair of twisted supports, the silence is snapped open again, that same, sharp crackle sounding briefly before cutting out. In the same instant, as if by magic, or perhaps very advanced Science! of the kind present in Star Trek (or maybe Star Wars), a hunched silhouette pops into existence down beside the tent, a thin layer of dust shifting upwards as a wave of displaced air ebbs over you.

You freeze, watching in utter, painstaking silence.

The figure seems to immediately busy itself with opening a can of (your) food, leaning inwards heavily, probably applying most of its weight to the lid. Which can’t be much – he must be around Laura’s height, maybe a little shorter, and even under the baggy hoodie that covers his torso you can tell that there’s very little flab on the guy. Perhaps most notably, his hands appear to be covered in sleek, dark brown fur, fingers terminating as stubby little claws. Kinda like yours, actually.

He lets out one final grunt of exertion before giving up on prying the lid open, and, as if it’s painful to resort to, begins to push his claws further out…

>[X] GET EVEN CLOSER SEE HIS FACE. >[X] “Hey bro what’s up with my food being here.” >[X] Write in.

You know what? Fuck it.

“That stuff tastes better if you heat it up.”

He (actually, is it a he? You’re assuming he, due to no discernible tits) jumps out of his skin. Or, while not exactly out of his skin, certainly off the floor. He then disappears, another sharp whiplash of interrupted air snapping at your ears.

He reappears in mid-air, at exactly the right time and place so as to fly face-first into one of the naked supports that dot the complex, his face smacking the metal with a loud, painful thud.

His mostly-prone form collapses into a heap. A sudden jolt of panic flashing through you – holy shit what if you killed him aaaaaaaa – you rush over, giving up any attempt at hiding your position. You reach him as he’s rolling over onto his back, a gurgling, incognisant groan rising from beneath his hood. Looking down at him, you see…

…Not your sister, obviously (she was taller than this when she was thirteen). Or anyone you know. Probably not dad’s secret Mexican lovechild, either.

This guy must be around Laura’s age, maybe a little younger, sporting somewhat fey, androgynous features of Latino ethnicity. Most prominently, his nose culminates in a black, moist tip you’d generally associate with some other mammal – something about him kinda reminds you of an otter, actually.

His eyes creak open, and you can’t help but find your breath caught in your lungs. They’re a haze of undecided blues, speckled with hints of other, brighter shades, seeming more like a snapshot of some shifting, changing aurora than something truly still.

So… they’re just like yours.

And, as you think this, his tail smacks you upside your head.

>THREAD 24: END

Thread #25 You are John James Green, mutant va – Ow!

Ouch.

Man, your head hurts.

It takes a moment for your thoughts to catch up to you, swooping down into your head. You hit the ground hard, your assorted layers of puffy winter wear preventing you from ending up peppered with cuts – but only just. You can feel your skin breaking out in bruises where various assortments of rubble push up at your ribs.

A sharp crack fills the air, followed by a yelp and a burst of unrecognizable gibberish (read: Spanish), and the sound of someone landing in a heap closer to the tent.

Groaning, you pull yourself up, and are treated to an ebbing vision of a small, hooded mutant trying to untangle himself from the flattened remains of his tent, that surprisingly huge (seriously, it must be almost as tall as he is, and probably thicker than your arm at the base) tail thrashing spastically at mostly air.

Laura has popped out from behind her cover, but is standing off to the side, a single, curved blade protruding from the soft flesh between her knuckles.

“Are you alright, John?”

>[x] "I'm fine." >[x] Try to calm the thief down.

Persuasion Check. >DC15 >+1 modifier Rolled 9 + 1

>10 >JJ continues to be a crack bitch

“I’m fine.” You grunt. You don’t feel any blood running where it shouldn’t be, so things are pretty gravy, far as you’re concerned. One side of your face feels like someone hit it with a giant floppy paddle, but the hurt is quickly draining away.

You edge a little closer, stepping around one the outcroppings of rubble that you’re pretty lucky not to have landed on, raising your hands in a declaration of nonviolence.

“Hey, look, I’m not gonna hurt you…”

You find yourself interrupted by the sound of fabric tearing, your thief apparently getting tired of wrestling with his tent. He grasps around desperately for something before abruptly giving up, staring up at you for a second until –

CRA-SNAP!

He vanishes in a ripple of warbling air. A moment later, his silhouette reappears a few meters away, further on into the ruins.

>[X] Run after him.

“Hey!”

You push through the rubble, feet pounding over random flecks of junk and strips of metal wiring. You can’t keep up a good pelt without picking up a few bruises – something sticking out here, something protruding there; the place is just too dense.

“Hey, I’ve still got your”–

You make it within a few feet before he vanishes again, the accompanying rush of air almost tipping you over – luckily, the dense environment means lots of random crap to right yourself with. You hear him pop back into existence a little to your right and bolt after him.

“I’ve still got your bag, kid!”

With grace much like your own, he bounds up an awkwardly-leaning pillar, his palms clearly adhering to the crumbling surface. He throws himself backward and

CRA-SNAP!

A wave of hot air rolls over you, and you realize immediately that he’s appeared over your head. You feel the bag in your hand suddenly jerked back as he digs his fingers into it, landing behind you and pulling with all his might (plus, you guess, the inertia of that rather marvellous flip).

>[X] Just, like, fall on him.

Well, he’s basically pulling you over anyway.

So you just let it happen and come down on him like a sack of bricks. Or, at the very least, a sack of low- fat sugar alternatives.

He lets out a thoroughly unmanly squeal as the two of you drop to the ground, your back flat against his.

His tail lashes out, but it seems to be running mostly on auto-pilot, doing little other than disturbing a whole lotta dust. In the half-light, you notice that it has a sort of weird, translucent gauze on the end, like a fin or something, the dusk occasionally lighting it up into a sheet of orangey-red. Reminds you a little of a Bunsen bur–

CRA-SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA–

The world rolls up into your chest and explodes.

>Endurance Check

>DC13 Rolled 5

>5 >stahp JJ

No cold. No light. No bruises. You feel nothing but a tumbling, veering sensation, like you’ve gone and hurtled dropped down through a long, dark tunnel, and the light and the end has long since vanished. You turn around. You flail. You soar over Lake Michigan. You try to cover your ears and block out the terrible, constant rushing, the roaring of tides against ages, but you have nothing to grasp, and nothing to grasp with.

–AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!

The light and the sound and the cold assault you all at once, and a second later, you feel that other, oft- overlooked constant, gravity, and the ground comes rushing up to meet you.

You shut your eyes and guard your face, and not a second too soon – you hit the ground hard, the impact squeezing the air from your lungs. It was just a meter or two, just –

You suck in air and struggle to right yourself, your ears still ringing. Where are you? You’re, you’re nearby, you guess? You’re still in the complex. Something rustles above you, and you glance up.

Hanging-upside down from the ceiling, bare feet clinging to the concrete, your thief is rifling through their rucksack, a desperate glint in his eyes.

He – he must’ve teleported, with you along for the ride. You must've appeared up there are just, just... dropped. Christ, you felt like there was no time in there, like you were at all points in your life at once, falling through them and them falling through you.

You cough loudly.

>[X] Tell him you’ve got his journal. >[X] Tell him you’re not here to hurt him.

You can pretty much guess what he’s looking for.

As you dig through your jacket, the kid becomes increasingly more agitated in his attempts to wring something out of that rucksack, his claws scoring long, jagged tears into the stained fabric. At first he seems to slow down, tensing his fingers, but the lull doesn’t last. It seems he can’t get his claws in.

Feeling your fingers close around the diary, you drag it out, holding it up for him to see. With your other hand, you ease off your glasses, taking a second to adjust to the new light.

“Looking for this?”

He freezes, seeming to collapse a little inward, almost balling up protectively. His eyes dart from you to the raggedy little book, and then back again, skirting around your outline as if trying to pull some secret from you.

“You speak English? I’m not gonna hurt you. I just”–

The tail snaps out with surprising speed, that weird, half-visible gauze folding around the diary, wrenching it out of your grasp. It swings back up over his head and transfers it into his waiting hands. Hand, actually – one of them is caught in the remains of his bag. He struggles briefly to disentangle his claws before apparently just giving up.

His gaze returns to you, one part suspicious and one part desperate.

“My pictures.” He has a slight, quiet voice. His accent is clearly Mexican, but his pronunciation is actually surprisingly deft. “Where are my pictures?”

>[X] “Well, technically, those are my pictures.” >[X] Pull them out.

“Well…” You begin, still fighting back the urge to cough. “Technically, those are my pictures.”

He looks you up and down again, his posture shifting subtly, opening up a little. Maybe he’s about to spring off, maybe not. You reach into your coat pocket and pull out the photos, sifting them around in your grasp. His tail twitches, preparing to flash out, but you pull back your hand, keeping it out of his range.

If he’s gonna run, he’s gonna have to pry those pictures out of your hands first.

Keeping his eyes on you, he rubs his hands together, kneading his fingers into the gaps between their opposites. His tongue flicks out, licking his lips – and most of his nose – nervously.

“You… you are him, then?” He’s looking at you like you’re a UFO. Or Bigfoot. “You are, er, you are Doctor Green’s son?”

Something moves in the corner of your eye, and he coils up instantly, retreating a few paces across the ceiling, his claws flexing. Laura stands a yard or two away, a pair of cold, bright razors protruding from each hand. A low growl reverberates through her throat.

Persuasion Check.

>DC13 >+1 Ability Modifier >+1 Situational Modifier Rolled 17 + 2

>[X] “Everybody calm down.” >[X] “My dad was a doctor, I guess.”

“Whoa, whoa, okay…”

You put your hands up in the air, like you care very very much, about multiple things. Like not getting into yet another super-brawl and losing this… this small Mexican miracle.

“…Nobody’s gonna… jump on anyone.” You glance meaningfully toward Laura, whose knees are in optimum jumping-on-somebody position. “Everybody calm down.”

Please, please Laura. You need this. You need this.

The thief hisses quietly, his claws rubbing their way in and out of his fingertips, but he doesn’t make a move. He clearly wants to – or part of him, does, anyway - but he doesn’t. He just shuffles in place, constantly switching, ever so slightly, from one foot to the other, kept adhered to the ceiling by little more than his toes.

Laura answers you with a long, unconvinced stare, but eventually shuts her eyes in a demonstration of comprise, her claws slowly edging their way back under her skin.

For a moment you just breathe. All the adrenaline crowding up the air is getting to you. You swallow, and allow yourself a few short, quiet coughs.

“My… my dad was a doctor, I guess.”

You guess. What he was a doctor of eludes you. As far as you remember, he was a doctor of shutting himself in his study for days and coming out looking like someone owed him something. This stuff… all this was a long time ago.

“I wasn’t…” The thief licks his lips again, eyes flicking between you and Laura. “I wasn’t sure it was you. I was, honestly, I was hoping… not.”

His eyebrows fall, and you think you see, under the shadow of his hood, a pair of floppy, overly-large ears flattening downwards (technically upwards).

“You’re not a doctor like him, are you?”

>[X] “Do I look like I make doctor money?” >[X] Write in.

Well…

Well, no, you’re not a doctor and you don’t make lots of K’s per year and you don’t have a nice coat or a nice car. Thanks for the reminder.

You can only imagine what a disappointment you’d be to your father were he not too dead to ever know. Big time science guy one generation, making theories, mixing chemicals, attending fancy dinner parties where everyone wears a bowtie, to homeless mutant living in a burnt-out apartment block, handing out papers mostly about screaming at Spider-Man.

But then again, you always do remember him looking kinda washed-out and raggedy, so maybe he was a fluke and being a total shit runs in the family after all. Maybe he was just better at fighting it. Maybe he was just tougher. You remember him sort of explaining to you that his parents were, like, super fundies or something, and they basically kicked him out on his ass (and, he went on, that’s why they’re never at Thanksgiving or Christmas). Maybe life toughened him up early and he was just better at rolling with the punches.

Urgh…

“Kid, are you serious?” You can’t help but squint at him, as if he’s said something so ridiculous that you have to affirm that it actually came out of his mouth. He bites his lip, almost pleadingly. “Do I look like I make doctor money?”

Slowly, he shakes his head.

“I… I should maybe go. I was hoping that, that if Doctor Green”– You hate that. You can’t help it. You hate the reverence of that title, like he’s announcing the name of some king or something. He was just a guy, he was called Joshua, he had no sense of direction and he always ate the last of the cereal –“’s son was alive, he would be a doctor, and you could, er… fix me.”

Fix? Fix him?

>[X] “What do you mean by that?” >[X] “How do you know my father?”

“What do you mean by that?”

He looks at you with an almost blank, opaque air about him – you feel, suddenly, that the tables have turned, and you’re the one stating the obvious. After a moment of dumbfounded staring, he narrows his eyes, turning them into slits of bright, angry blue.

“Isn’t… is it not obvious?” He holds out his hands, demonstrating his clawed digits. His tail swings lazily from one side to the other, as if waving. “Look at me. He made it go away before, he could, I thought maybe his son could… do it again.”

You grimace. This is ridiculous, and… it’s posing questions you’re not sure you like.

“How do you know my father? Why could he help?”

In a blur, he detaches from the ceiling, twisting about to land on his feet. You can’t help but step back slightly.

“When I was young, back in Mexico, I had, um…” He licks his lips again, his eyes darting to and fro, seeking out the right words. “I had this appearing, and, I was very ill. I had a… a brain sickness. Doctor Green worked with us, me and the other orphans. He was with a company; he had a treatment that he was testing, something to help my brain. It was important to test it on, ah… people… like…”

He glances to and fro, as if he’s about to give voice to some grave sin.

“…devil people, like us. It helped me, my brain got better, and my…” He stares down at his hands. “…This, this went away. But then it came back, and I just… I went looking… I thought…”

He trails off.

Rolled 17

Rollan for Otterlad's memory.

>[X] “What company was he working for?” >[X] “You’re not a ‘devil person’.”

“You’re not a ‘devil person’.” You say, hastily. That whole deal there makes you uncomfortable. Especially considering your near-demon-encounter – an encounter still quite fresh and vivid in your memory. The kid smiles vaguely, but briefly.

“Doctor Green said the same.” He’s wringing his fingers now, as if he has to squeeze some kind of tension out of them. “That made me feel better, even though I knew he was lying.”

Right. Okay. You guess… this guy is pretty set on being the spawn of Satan. You shift the awkward subject aside.

“What company was he working for?” As far as you know, your dad was… freelance, or something. Can scientists be freelancers? Is that a science-compatible thing?

He chirps up, prodding the air with a clawed finger.

“Yes, um… I know that.” He hisses quietly, biting his lip. “It was, uh… they were called ROXXON. ROXXON Energy.”

Well... you know who they are. They're people with lots of money. They do oil or something.

He stares at you for a moment, licking his lips. Finally, he speaks, his voice wavering, like’s wringing it out of a sponge.

“You can’t help me, can you?” He’s smiling now, but not happily – it’s the smile of someone who is steadily easing their hands off the steering wheel, and just acknowledging, finally, that the tide is supreme over their course. His eyes stare through you, out beyond the patches of reddening sky, into nothing.

“I’m going to be this for the rest of my life.”

>[X] “Look… let’s just get you out of this dump.” >[X] Write in.

You exchange glances with Laura. She simply stands aside, an immobile shadow under the dying light, her expression an impermeable, constant island, far away and circled by deep green oceans. You wonder if she is simply doing nothing, or if she doesn’t know what to do. Either way, she leaves it to you, reminding you that, despite her apparent confidence, she is just as much an incomplete being as yourself. Possibly more.

You turn back toward the kid, and step forward, holding out your hand. He stares at it through distant, undone eyes.

“Look… let’s just get you out of this dump. I’m JJ.”

“I – I know.” He interjects. “Jonathan. I visited your hometown, looking for your father.”

“Oh. Right.” That’s kind of creepy, actually. All this time, there was this… person… following the trail of your father’s ashes. And where they gather, apparently, is at your feet. Which… which means… “Well, okay. This girl is Laura, she’s cool.”

…He probably has no leads on your sister. He went after you, after all. Not her.

The kid nods nervously. Slowly, he reaches out, and you feel the sleek, soft warmth of fur against your palm. He’s got… kinda pads, or something, too. It reminds you of dog feet, sort of.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Gaby, Gaby Alvarez.”

You start walking out into the dusk. It’s not too far.

“Gaby. That’s short for Gabriel, right?”

“Um, no. Gabriella.”

>THREAD 25: END