Still, enough of enough funnel their way through the downtown terminal, direct line to Philly, heart of the state. Pittsburgh was the pits, why wouldn't you want to leave?
Tweaker liked places like this. Places that led to other places, and served no other purpose besides that. There was something special about them. Exciting. Enticing. They really didn't have a defined identity on their own, and most people took them for granted.
Until they stopped working. Then fucking everything ground to a halt.
"ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS. AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED."
The man's voice was shaky as he spoke into the intercom. Crumpled note sweaty in his hand. Scribbled words - I have a bomb.
"ALL ARRIVING TRAINS WILL BE POSTPONED FROM ENTERING THE STATION, AND ALL DEPARTING TRAINS WILL BE DELAYED. EVAC-"
Tweaker waggled her finger, and the man winced.
"PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL DIRECTED TO OTHERWISE."
Shutting off the microphone, he looked to Tweaker, finger tugging at his collar.
"What - what now?" he asked, shivering. She handed him another piece of paper.
2.4 million people relied on the Pittsburgh Amtrak System to make their day to day lives function. If the trains stopped running than the city stopped running and if the city stopped running chaos would ensue. It also meant that when there were problems with it everyone would be watching. The news crews reported on the scene from behind a police barricade "A bomb threat has trapped the citizens of Pittsburgh and halted the Amtrak system. Damage to the system is estimated to cost millions of dollars in repairs and economic disruption. Police are on the scene and urging everyone to stay calm. There is still no answer to who is behind this but, authorities believe this to be some kind of terrorist attack. Motives are still unclear."
CLICK he muted the broadcast and slipped his phone into his pocket. This was his first shot at the big leagues and a chance to really test his mettle as a hero. His first ever Terrorist attack, like something straight out of a comic book. He couldn't help but wonder how deep this could go. Was he about to stumble across a massive sect of terrorists that were working in the shadows of the city to seize control and topple the economy? Was the work of some rich tech guru who wanted to secure funding to install his own super soldier military as the states new police force?
"Only one way to find out" he muttered as he portaled off of a nearby rooftop and into the station.
The click of camera shutters and cries from the police trying to stop him erupted from behind. "I'll take it from here officers!" He shouted while darting away. Another portal and he was deeper out of sight. He spotted one of those spherical cameras that picked up on everything around it. It was a safe bet that whoever was behind this was watching and by proxy had seen him. He opened a portal to the rafters in an attempt to remain out of sight while he thought of a plan of attack. The station itself was devoid of any goons so they were either on the train or the person behind this was prepared enough to shut the entire thing down by themselves. Whoever this was he needed time to figure out where they were and how to get to them without them knowing. They had yet to make any demands or set off their bombs which meant they probably wanted attention. At least that was how it worked in comics.
He opened another portal and emerged on a staircase. "Think we can hurry this up, I got an appointment at 1:00 and I have to get downtown!?" Whoever was behind this could probably hear whoever was inside. He slowly drew his pistols while keeping an eye out for any signs of movement.
Last Edit: Jul 25, 2023 19:54:51 GMT by ☢Half-Life
Well,well,well, that didn't take too long at all. Already, the sounds of sirens outside rose and fell, and from the live feeds on X, the news crews had arrived as well. Always better to call the news than the cops. They chased the cameras, not the other way around.
Glancing at the guard - the man was shaking like a little dog on cocaine - Tweaker shrugged, then grabbed his head and slammed it into the corner of the desk in one swift motion. With a crack, he crumpled. She didn't need to do that, but he'd probably be better off sleeping through this if he didn't have the guts.
Meanwhile, the good old boys in blue were making their way inside. She saw them gathering on the security desk monitors around the edges of the station. A shootout would be fun. Just like in the movies. But -
There was someone else. Not a cop, but not a civilian either, standing on the staircase near the security office.
How'd he get there? And why was he blue?
Rude girl. Bad to ask someone why they're blue. Bad, bad, bad.
Muttering under her breath, Tweaker stepped through the wall.
For the man on the staircase, first he was alone, then there was a head popping through the concrete blocks making up the wall of the stairwell beside him. Caked in a cheshire grin, the girl placed her hands on either side, then with a - one - and a two - and a pop - she pulled the rest of her body through into the stairwell proper.
The lights flickered, and the glowing exit sign above the stairs shifted.
BANG He jumped, he fucking jumped and accidentally pulled the trigger causing the tile of the nearby wall to spiderweb with cracks from the impact of the bullet. I mean what else are you supposed to do when someone pops out of a solid object like its the Haunting of Hill House. His cheeks turned red from the wave of embarrassment that washed over him. It didn't matter, he needed to regain control of his emotions and the situation. Spinning on his heels he leveled Lefty at the masked character and took a few paces back. Long white hair framed her mask which looked like someone tried to draw the Cheshire Cat after watching Mad Max. He did his best to hide how absolutely creeped out he was by her entire getup.
The lights flickered and the exit sign above changed. Was she mute or was this just another scare tactic? Maybe her powers involved controlling technology/manipulating technology."Nice one-AHEM" he dropped his voice an octave and did his best tough guy impression "Nice trick Casper, let the hostages go." He did his best to hide his smirk. That one was good. The whole time he switched his focus between the wall walker and any dark corners or doorways. If she wasn't alone than he had to be ready.
Last Edit: Jul 25, 2023 20:47:35 GMT by ☢Half-Life
Tweaker tilted her head. The guy had guns. Two guns. And by the way he shot the fucking wall before trying to negotiate, he either was scared out of his mind or had the shittiest trigger discipline known to man. Honestly, she wasn't sure which was worse - both made him a bit more of a unpredictable factor than safely reasonable.
Good for her safely reasonable was an afterthought.
The lights overhead exploded, dizzying, kaleidoscopic colors darting across the surfaces as Tweaker took a step forward. And another. And another. And then broke into a sprint towards the guy, hands curling somewhere in the air behind her as if grabbing something that wasn't, at the moment, there.
He read the sign when it shifted again "Guess we gotta do this the hard way.". He was about to pull the trigger on Lefty when the sign above exploded into an array of scintillating colors that left him stumbling backwards in a fit of momentary blindness. He couldn't see which meant he couldn't wormhole out of danger and he was stumbling while on a staircase. Without any idea of where to place his first couple steps were clean but, on the third he felt his foot slip on the edge of the step.
Falling down the stairs hurt...alot. Even though it gave him a moment for his vision to return to normal he could feel the pain shooting up his spine. He quickly portaled himself further down the tunnel and kept Lefty trained on the last spot he had seen the girl. The moment he saw her he would open fire with Lefty's remaining 5 rounds. "Whats your angle anyway? Why disrupt people's day like this?" He called out to her. Gotta try and get her to monologue, comic book villains loved to monologue and that might give him a clue to where the bombs are.
Ducking past the first bullet - going wide regardless due to the flash of staggering lights - Tweaker skidded to a halt a foot from the spoilsport and flung her hands out. He - well. Dodged wasn't exactly the right term. What he did was a lot less intentional, and a lot less graceful. He stumbled out of the way, toppling down the stairs mere moments before Tweaker opened her hands, sending the something-she-was-holding-that-wasn't tumbling into the world of was.
The was it became happened to be an adult male oceanic dolphin weighing approximately six tons. The animal flew into the wall with ridiculous speed, body leaving a sizeable dent as it exploded outward into a shower of dolphin-viscera-colored confetti. Spitting tiny pieces of paper out of her mouth, Tweaker wheeled on the spot in time to catch the wannabe hero go from
the stairs ->
-> to further down the tunnel.
At his question, Tweaker shrugged - not really the type to talk - and leapt down the stairs. Three bullets went over her head, one grazed her cheek, and one hit her soundly in the leg. They fucking hurt. Turning the leap into more of a staggered, controlled fall, she somersaulted cartoonishly over the last few steps, landing on her back with the resounding clatter of a falling rack of pots. She clutched her leg, mask concealing any emotion behind that endlessly staring grin.
Sometimes it’s about being at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Sometimes it’s about being at the right place at the wrong time, too, or the wrong place at the right time, or, very rarely, the right place at the right time. Or even more rarely, all at once. Which was what Todd kinda hoped this would turn out to be. Technically he wasn’t supposed to be here – he didn’t have anywhere to be, he’d just been casing the place out for an ongoing investigation. Drug mules could use AMTRAK just like everyone else. He hadn’t spotted one yet, but he’d been shifting faces every so often, just to avoid suspicion.
His build wasn’t his build, either. He’d gone for average, and had been kind of shuffling pieces of himself under the guise of going to the bathroom whenever he felt like he’d been there too long. If he could do it on a park bench or a bus station, why not the train station, right? And so far it was working.
Until the announcement came. And the predator in him caught the undercurrent of fear, even over the loudspeaker.
Something was up.
He’d gotten up. He’d changed again, new t-shirt, different eyes, the faded green of grass left too long in the sun. He’d brought those eyes with him, followed fear where the smell came the strongest, and found a TV turned to a news station.
Bomb threat. Of course. Someone was watching the security cameras, probably, but it was unlikely they’d catch the anomaly that was Cryptid until much later. And besides, he hadn’t made the mistake of wearing his own face here in the first place.
If he’d wanted to be, he could be a fox in a henhouse right now.
But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t, because he was satisfied from the last meal and he didn’t need that kind of heat. And, he realized, he’d be much better suited than the alleged super-heroes to finding the root of the problem. It’d be a much needed change of balance, given that things were actually starting to look up. He couldn’t risk the issues that might come, and he couldn’t risk another negative token. And these people, scared as they were, did need the help.
There was a little debate, as he shuffled back toward a bathroom again, backpack on, head down a little, the general air of unease shared with the rest of the station attendees, about whether he should just change face again, or if he should just break out the mask instead. In the end he decided to change his clothes into the Kevlar and overcoat, but keep the mask secured to his belt under the coat. He’d also keep a different face - the slight shift of jaw, black eyes, and black hair that he'd already established in his mishap at the warehouses, in case anyone went looking. And then the Cryptid was on the prowl.
He had no clue what he was looking for. He did know when he heard the sound of banter that he should totally avoid that. He did not need to draw the attention of whoever was fighting in that stairwell, so he started looking for another one. He followed his nose, for someone different or the wrong chemicals; his gut, because it tended to put his survival first and noticed things before his messy human brain did; and his ear, because in the movies, bombs beeped a little bit. This probably wouldn’t be like a movie at all. There was a solid chance the good guys wouldn’t find the bomb, and the station would be blown to hell.
Well, there were movies where that happened, but they opened that way and tended to have a way better ending because of it. He wasn’t ready to be part – or parts – of somebody else’s tragic backstory. And he was trying not to think too hard about what he’d do when he found the bomb, if he found the bomb, given his limited experience.
A bomb couldn’t be that different from a car battery, right?
'Okay...I can do this' was his first thought as the last of his shots rang true turning a graceful flip into a controlled fall. She was quick, her overall powers were still a mystery, and 'Is that confetti...doesn't matter...focus' was his second. He kept Righty trained on her while he took a few steps closer.
She wasn't the talkative type but, talking was the only way to find out where these bombs were. He had to be careful not to lose sight of the more pressing situation. There were thousands upon thousands of people trapped on the tracks with the looming threat of being blow sky high hanging over their heads. He needed to get this girl talking or whatever it was she did.
"How about a name then?" He took out his phone. It was risky since the last device she communicated through exploded but, as much as it sucked, she had all the cards at the moment. Hopefully he could get her to talk or at least keep her here until the police managed to find the bomb.
Last Edit: Jul 27, 2023 12:30:10 GMT by ☢Half-Life
[attr="style","display:inline;font-size:10px;color:#bf2723;]"Oof. Darn it.
Oh, heck."
This was not as easy - or as silent - as the cartoons made it out to be. Mina Claret had envisioned some sort of super coordinated running-and-jumping-over-rails setup, where no one even knew she was there until she was right behind them. The fact that her superhero attire consisted - thus far - of a red hooded cape and a domino mask, both courtesy of All Souls Halloween Supplies meant she wasn't going to be invisible, but she'd thought she'd be inaudible - or at least, less audible.
Mina was not actually qualified for this - for any of this, really. This was, in fact, her first event like this. She'd been looking for once since she'd become a criminal by fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run accident a couple weeks ago. Technically, she had been the one who was hit, but she had also been the one who had run, and she supposed that was enough to set her up for a life of crime. That was what the SRO at high school made it sound like, anyway.
The weird thing was that Mina didn't actually care. She'd always been a good kid - a super good kid. She didn't drink or do drugs. She didn't shoplift, she didn't even loiter. She turned her homework in on time and did all the bonus questions. Mina Claret was, without question, a very good kid.
And she was so, so sick of it.
She'd always had to be good. There was the whole cancer thing and the hospitalization thing and then everyone just worried, and then she'd met a weird stranger who'd told her she could just... walk away, and... well, now here she was, because she'd seen it on the news and biked over from the library. She'd locked her bicycle up on the rack outside, because she'd still been in good kid mode - but then she'd donned the cape and mask, and now here she was.
She made her entrance right by the action, running up and dropping into an absolutely unnecessary 3-point-landing just because she hoped it looked good, and then flipped the cape over her shoulder in a single smooth motion that she had definitely not been practicing in front of the mirror all week.
"Hey." Play it cool, Mina, play it cool. She didn't look at the crazy supervillain, because that would not have been cool. "Need a sidekick? Name's Red."
For the illusive Cryptid, the station would be filled with many, many smells. The oil and grime coating the tracks. The sweat of the huddled hostages, some of them watching him, some on their phones, some trying to avoid looking anywhere at all. Gunsmoke - or was there gunsmoke? - from the stairwell where the villain and the gunslinging hero were duking it out. And -
Blood, from a room nearby, a simple door in the wall marked Security on a faint sign.
Were he to listen, too, he'd hear the thin, muffled noise of something ticking.
--
Settling to the side, head half-cocked, Tweaker watched as the newcomer leapt between her and her assailant. When she introduced herself, Tweaker began to - not exactly laugh. Something that felt like laughter, should have been laughter, but was really more a thin, reedy wheeze from the woman's hidden mouth. Using the wall to hoist herself to her feet, leg still aching like it had just been shot - despite the lack of any blood - she nodded at the girl, then looked at the man, as if to taunt him.
Two on one.
A second later, the phone in his land lit up as it began to ring.
UNKOWN CALLER.
Behind him, above him, the sign reading the train terminal information fluttered, then changed.
DEPARTURES, WESTBOUND: A, B HI RED: NICE, CAPE ARRIVALS, WESTBOUND: E, F WHEN HE ANSWERS: JUMP, LEFT
This felt almost too easy. Not that he was complaining, but still, he’d thought he’d have to put a little more effort into it. Then again, the terrorist didn’t have any way to know that the smell of blood would draw someone in like a shark. The presence of the ticking he'd anticipated was only a bonus to his instincts.
There was a long moment’s hesitation at the door of the security office to swallow back the overeager taste of starvation and suppress the feeling of ice cold in his bones. He didn't need the food. He was here with a purpose, and while it would be a shame to leave whatever bloody mess was here for the cops, it'd be the best course of action. He couldn’t let his stomach lead this one.
If this was still going to run like a movie, he’d also have to double check for tripwires. Expect the worst, hope for the best, and all. With that in mind, he made sure to turn the handle slowly, and just barely ease the door open, peering in with limited vision to make sure this wasn’t a weirdly specific sort of trap.
If there was no sign of immediate danger, the Cryptid would swing the door the rest of the way open, and step in. And if it was, well, the bomb would probably go off and kill him anyway, and then it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. No harm in a little optimism.
This had to be a joke. He was half expecting the new girl to pull a camera out from underneath her double knotted red cape and shout 'PRANKED' relieving the spine crushing stress that was weighing down on him. Rather than validate his hopes she did the more obvious thing of offering her assistance to the villain. Because why not add a second unknown enemy to the shit storm he was now caught spinning in. "Guess its my lucky day. Buy 1 get 1 free at the looney bin." The exasperation in his voice was palpable. He'd already looked like an idiot twice during this encounter and he had nothing to show for it other than a bruised tailbone.
His phone started to ring he couldn't help but get angry. He wanted to talk through this without real violence but, based on everything that had happened so far there was no way this was a call to talk. Rather than just mess with the display, like she had when she flash banged him with an exit sign, she chose to call him. Every instinct he had was telling him it was a trap. Without a doubt he would pick up the phone and she'd shoot a knife through the speaker or make it explode in his face. There were fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters on those trains whose families might never get to see them again. The amount of trauma these two were trying to cause made him sick. Fuck talking.
He lowered his pistol and hovered his thumb over the answer button. "Sorry, can't come to the phone at the moment but you can leave a message after the-"BANG as he pulled the trigger he opened a portal at the end of his revolver with the exit being right below Tweaker's chin. An uppercut with a bullet as he tossed his phone aside and darted forward. Leveling Righty at Red's chest he ripped two more shots.
[attr="style","padding:9px;color:#AEB9B3;font-family:'Averia Libre';font-size:14px;border-top:2px #BF2723 solid;border-left:2px #bf2723 solid;border-radius:15px 0px 0px 0px;margin-left:25px;margin-top:35px;margin-bottom:25px;"]The sign changed. Mina - Red - almost missed it. She hadn't really expected to have to read signs while she was doing this. Actually, she didn't know what she had expected at all, and everything that she had expected was probably wrong anyway, so maybe it wasn't really worth thinking too much about. Anyway, she had noticed the sign, even if it had only been for a moment.
She definitely didn't wave at it when it said hi to her. If this made her look like an idiot, maybe it would keep people occupied trying to find out what she'd been waving at while she looked down at her hands really quick, thumbs-and-forefingers outstretched. Left was the one that made an L. Of course, Mina knew which way was left, it was just that this seemed really important, and maybe it was a good idea to check.
Wait, her left or the supervillain's left? No, that was the same left. What if it was the sign's left? The sign's left was the other way! Oh no, that wasn't good, and if she asked it was totally going to give away the super secret plan. And then she was out of time, because the guy was refusing to answer his phone - which was probably rude because someone was obviously trying to get in touch with him, but also he was fighting a supervillain so maybe that was okay? And then he moved and -
Oh, she was supposed to jump. Red hoped that it meant her left and obligingly jumped that way.
This did not stop the guy from shooting her.
"OW! Son of a GUN!" Getting shot hurt! Actually getting shot hurt a lot. Actually, getting shot hurt... less than she'd expected? Was she supposed to be dead? Was she dead? Red looked down at her chest, which wasn't.
"Am I dead?" Was this how this worked? Like, was she supposed to sit down until someone tagged her back in? Or was she actually dead and she just hadn't noticed and she just thought she was here and everyone else just saw a gloomy floating specter in a red cape? Mina didn't really want to be dead. It just seemed sort of premature. You couldn't beat cancer and then get killed in your first supervillain sidekick thing.
"Um... do I say a rhyme or something to get back in? Violets are blue and roses are red, L-O-L sucker, I am not dead?" Did that cover it? Was that good enough?
It was good enough to her, unless she was actually dead. If she was, she wasn't doing any of the following:
Red moved forward as best as she could to catch up with the other two, and tried to give the guy some payback with a punch in the back. It was not the best punch. Her arms were wrong. Her back was wrong. Her legs were wrong. Her hand was wrong. The quiet "Ow" was definitely wrong, but she had just gotten shot and that definitely still hurt, like, a lot.
"Be gone, do-gooder. This train station has been claimed in the name of... actually, sorry, I don't know your name. Well, um - hostile takeover, anyway!"
Good news was, the security room wasn't a bloodbath. Or was the bad news to the sort of guy who didn't mind a bit of a bath in blood? Whatever the case, the smell was coming from a thin puddle on the floor - and a few streaks on the desk - which marked the downfall of a still-alive but very unconscious security guard. He let out a low, rattling breath as the Cryptid entered, shifting a bit where he lay.
More importantly, sitting in the corner just below the desk was a small canvas satchel that was, at the moment, ticking ominously.
--
He didn't answer. He didn't -
shit.
Tweaker stumbled back as the bullet shot just beneath her chin - the world toppling with her, ground beginning to shift with a distant rumble beneath their feet. The kid was an idiot, but she was a useful idiot, taking a couple hits like a champ then running in and throwing the crappiest punch Tweaker had ever seen. If she stuck around after this, she'd have to help with that.
Mask knocked askance by the wayward shot, she stood upright, glancing at the phone laying on the ground. That'd been unexpected. The tinny speaker was crackling with the ringtone even now, mingling with the sound of something - else.
A screaming horn.The screech of metal.
But what way? When he was holding it, through him - but now it was on the ground, facing up. Which meant -
The rumbling grew louder, then the floor around the phone exploded into a tunnel entrance, a Siemens ACS-64 bursting cabin first through it. Not that Tweaker knew it was an ACS-64, and that anybody else here knew either. She just knew it was a big fucking train. Roaring past, it crashed into the ceiling, then toppled to one side, flying out at an angle that nobody could reasonably predict.
Especially the thunderstruck idiot in the grinning mask directly in its path.