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Bedlam City October 31, 2020 - Sundown "H-hey, how long is this gonna take already?" Robert Meza asked for the dozenth time, fiddling with the expensive looking watch on his wrist and looking about the interrogation room as though he was going to spot something new inside the four dour walls. His chair creaked as he shifted his weight about and his flop sweat made his dark hair fall limply against his forehead. "You got somewhere you'd rather be, Meza? There's the door," Detective Montgomery snapped irritably. Heavyset and red faced he'd left his jacket draped over the back of the chair across from Meza while he paced back and forth in front of the two-way mirror. "The ADA's running late is all. Once she gets your statement, we get you out of the city for a while, like you asked. So until then, just shaddup, yeah?" Meza drew his shoulders together and ducked his head slightly then looked about the room again. "Yeah, yeah, okay. But what's he doing here?" The third man in the room, lounging in a chair in the corner raised an eyebrow over one ice blue eye. "Lucky for you your lawyer knows a police station is a pretty stupid place to go if you wanna avoid anybody on the Mara's payroll," Lou Lubrano replied dryly, smirking in Montgomery's direction. He tugged at the cuffs on his rumpled suit jacket. "Consider me insurance. You like insurance, right Robbie? Firebug like you?" The informant looked away but set his jaw, hands palm down on the table in front of him. "Look, I'm not saying I'm no angel. But I hadda do something this time. Th-they was just kids, y'know? Ain't right." Lubrano's expression remained impassive, partially concealed by his black beard but he paused in silence for a moment. "Yeah, Robbie. I know." A tinny rendition of a cheerful pop tune broke the heavy silence permeating the room. "@#$% ringtone," Montgomery swore as he stomped back to the table and fished a phone out of his jacket pocket. "Yeah?! Of course I'm-- what? You got held up by what?!" With a sudden groan Meza collapsed over the table in front of him, muscles spasming. Lubrano was on his feet in an instant but stopped mid-step at a screeching noise. Mesa's fingernails, suddenly more bestial talons than anything, were carving deep trails in the metal surface. When his head shot up it was with luminous yellow eyes and teeth too large and too sharp for his jaw. He opened his mouth to ask a question but all that came out was a confused growl. He thrashed with another spasm and the table was tossed away from him, torn free of the rusted bolts attaching it to the floor. Montgomery went for his sidearm but was caught in the shoulder by the flying furniture on its way to smash into the two-way mirror, spiderweb cracking but not quite shattering. With tearing polyester, cracking bone and popping watch links Meza's form doubled then tripled in size, becoming a hulking creature covered in dark fur that towered over Lubrano. The beast stumbled froward a step before throwing its head back in a deafening howl, a sound that could be heard faintly echoed through the walls of the police station. Suddenly seized by a need to get away Meza leapt forward, swatting Lubrano aside like a straw dummy and crashing through the mirror in a rain of broken glass. Forcing himself back to his feet and ignoring Montgomery's attempts to free himself from under the dented table, Lubrano looked through the broken pane to see the path the werewolf had torn through the adjoining room and out of the building. Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket he shook one loose without looking away and put it unlit between his lips. "...huh."

GM The house was both "there", and "not there". The house physically existed, or, at least, it seemed to. There were pipes and cables connecting it to the rest of Bedlam City's infrastructure. But it was a blank spot on every map. There were no utility bills, no tax assessments, nothing on a scrap of paper in any office that Gremlin could break into or a single file in any database that L0vel@ce could hack open which proved that the house existed. No one Hitter asked knew anything about it, no matter how nice or how hard he asked them. And the investigation was complicated by the fact that all three of them kept having difficulty remembering that they were conducting an investigation in the first place. The house just kept slipping their minds. When they finally made the trek across the river to Greely Point to view the house in person, they had trouble looking directly at it. They stood in one spot for several minutes as their attention kept wandering away from it. The few people they saw walking around the neighborhood in the warm summer night seemed to look everywhere but at the house, even as they crossed the street to avoid it. Some were walking their dogs, and the dogs barked and growled and whimpered at the house, but their owners barely reacted. Hitter in particular was distracted with thoughts of how close they were to the Gorganzua syndicate's territory, a group who wouldn't look kindly on an Asian, a Latina, and a one of Scarpia's soldiers, retired or not. The house was surrounded by other mansions just like it, except the others were smaller, and the trees and grass near those houses were still alive.

Pier 6 was a nightclub nestled among the warehouses of Bedlam's docks, which despite its location maintained a modest reputation of a safe space where people from all walks of life could mix and mingle, engage in discreet business, or simply drink and dance the worries of the city away. The industrial aesthetic of brick walls and exposed steel combined with leather seating and wood surfaces gave the club a contrasting, if comforting interior. But none of that mattered at the moment, for it was closing time. The patrons of Pier 6 were disgorging into the street and Chance had settled back behind his own bar with a drink, toasting another relatively quiet night.

*CN: Violence, Police Brutality, Racism, Sexism* *Bang Bang BANG* "Bedlam PD!" preceded the shattering of door and frame as the boys in blue spilled into three apartments across Bedlam. *** In Wolverton the office door declaring Excelsior Investigations shattered under the blow the police spilling in with full tactical loadout weapons raised as if the middle aged resident kneeling in the center of the room next to a half empty cup of coffee was the greatest threat to public safety the city had known. Xavier Steadman was slammed to the ground bloodying his nose as he was cuffed and taken into custody. He knew better than to antagonize them with questions about his rights or the charges and patiently accepted the abuse as each badge number and face was committed to a memory more refined than most artificial data stores. *** Not far away in Hardwick park the sizzle of some kind of heavily spiced breakfast meats sizzled as Abuela Orellana called not for the first time to her school age grandchildren to dress and pack for school. The Garage downstairs was already open with her son hard at work for hte day when the police came. Only the elderly woman's rapid fire demands of "What did you do?!" threatened to drown out the SWAT teams demands the residents of hte crowded apartment get on the ground. When the family was all restrained and no few of the struggling families meager belongings shattered the apparent lead detective stomped up and down the line of hispanic faces glaring at each, "Somebody shut her UP!" he bellowed as Abuela Orellana continued her lamentations in non-stop spanish. "Sophia Orellana!" he demanded as he tried to place his quarry which seemed to finally silence the old woman just in time given the raised rifle butt one officer had aimed her direction. All eyes turned in shock to Sophia removing any chance of hiding who she was from the police and the young woman was quickly hauled to her feet and shoved toward the door and a waiting cruiser to snickers behind masked faces as to her upcoming popularity. *** The secluded Downtown apartment Alice currently called home should not have been a thing the police could find even if they did have reason to look for her. So it came as quite the shock when she found herself surrounded with eagle eyed tactical officers with guns leveled at her before she had the opportunity to even consider fleeing. The beefy detective that followed the officers in barely even looked at her before nodding to an officer behind her. There was a sharp pain on the back of her skull then everything went black. *** Lou sat in the lockup sleeping off last nights drunk, his continued presence in dry out a sign that someone wanted him here, maybe he made a pass at a wise guys arm candy, or maybe someone had a reason for him to be here. He woke to the door slamming open as an unlikely trio of perps were thrust into his cell the smallest in a barely stirring heap on the ground. The middle aged African American man made his way to the sink to begin to clear some of the blood from his face as the young hispanic woman was thrust into the cell behind him. Even by Bedlam PDs lax standards for inmate safety this was far from regulation. Xavier looked up at the others warily as he settled in to carefully dab at his nose and check it for a break, "I don't suppose they were more forthcoming with any of you as to why we are here?" he inquired with unusual calm for an honest man thrust amongst what one could only assume were hardened criminals.

So HP to Gremlin for the railroading but teleporting kinda wrecks this whole set up Alice will be coming too without more than minor bruising whenever Fox wants to post. At most Gremlin, L0vel@ce and Savant might have heard something about Bedlam Savings and Loan getting hit last night by an organized crew. Obviously you all are in some way suspects. Lou knows nothing about the bank job but does know he's supposed to be scouting for a crew to pull a delicate heist for the Scarpia family that can't use their usual guys without risking tipping off the other families to what they are pulling. Lots of delicate physical and computer security to get past among other issues. Government building important records that sort of thing.

Lou Lubrano: Hitter Power Level: 8 [Without Powers] / 10 [With Powers] / 13 (180/217PP) Unspent Power Points: 37 Trade-Offs: +2 Attack / -2 Damage [Without Powers], -2 Defence / +2 Toughness [With Powers] In Brief: Contender, cop, criminal, concrete. Theme: Push + Pull by July Talk Alternate Identity: Lou Lubrano (Secret) Birthplace: Stark Hill, Bedlam City Base of Operations: Converted Warehouse Occupation: Hitter Affiliations: The Fix, BCPD [Formerly], Scarpia Family [Formerly] Family: Nora D'Angelo [Ex-Wife], Max Lubrano [Son] Description: Age: 44 (DoB: 1972) Gender: Male Ethnicity: Italian-American Height: 6'0" Weight: 215 lbs Eyes: Ice Blue Hair: Grey, Black Beard Lou's layers of muscle are built for function rather than aesthetics and mostly hidden under the perpetually rumpled suits he wears. His hair, combed back off of his lined face, has gone uniformly grey but his beard remains jet black and notably better maintained than most of his appearance. He stands with his back straight and shoulders squared but with his unassuming manner he still tends to fade into a crowd. He never drinks while he's working and never smokes when he's not but the lingering scent of both suggest he still does more of both than he ought. History: Lou was never a great boxer. Making up for any lack of finesse with an ability to soak up monumental amounts of punishment, he was good enough to earn a modest scholarship and some respect in the neighbourhood but he never considered himself anything more than a big fish in a small pond. Real respect meant being more than a second rate prizefighter. Real respect in Bedlam meant joining up with a gang and he knew only one gang had a retirement plan: the police. Lou was never a great cop. The city didn't provide that opportunity. They didn't have a fraction of the resources to deal with all of the crime in Bedlam anyway so where was the harm in taking a bribe to let the organized, orderly stuff slide? Picking your battles was just another job skill and Lou wasn't afraid of putting in the work to learn. Nobody could say he didn't do some good and more people went home happy than not. Besides, it wasn't like the basic salary was worth risking his neck over and he had a family to think about. Lou was never a great husband. He met Nora at a college when her date made the poor decision to take a swing at him. He liked that she was pretty and quick witted, she liked that he was ambitious and laughed loudly and often. They got married the same month he graduated from the academy and joined the police force and their son Max was born a few years later. They never got around to taking that trip they talked about but maybe once they had enough set aside for Max's schooling. Lou was never a great partner. It wasn't like Simmons made it easy on him, always pushing his luck, always sticking his nose where it was liable to get cut off. They should have ignored the tip about the drug lab but Simmons wanted the bust and it was only two blocks away from a school. Max had just started Grade 5. They went in without backup. It wasn't a drug lab, at least not the way they were thinking. Somebody shot. Something exploded. Lou woke up in the hospital nearly two week later. Simmons didn't. Lou was never a great liar. He nearly slipped up maybe a dozen times before he finally got caught just shy of two years later; it was tough to miss a bullet bouncing off of a chin suddenly made out of the same steel as his car door. Metahumans couldn't be cops and that left Lou without a career and without friends. He took a few odd jobs but nothing stuck. He started to drink more. He never came home drunk but a lot of nights that meant he just didn't come home. Eventually he came home to an empty house and a note. He sold the house, moved into a closet the landlord had the gall to call a bachelor apartment. He signed the papers Nora mailed to him from her sister's place out of state seven months after that. She put a copy of Max's latest school picture in the envelope; that went up on the nearly empty fridge. He was down to his last excuse over late rent when one of the guys he used to take money from offered to buy him a drink. Turned out there were certain people very interested in someone with Lou's specific combination of experience, skills and abilities. Turned out that what Lou was truly great at was hurting bad people who'd made other bad people angry. Sometimes somebody needed to be found, sometimes something needed to be retrieved, sometimes it was just about sending a message. They gave their hitter a name and the situation got handled. He finally had respect, of a sort. The only trouble was that those names didn't always belong to people who were as bad as Lou might have liked. Sometimes they weren't that much older than his son. Lou started to think that someday he was going to be given a name and there'd turn out to be one more thing he wasn't great at. Personality & Motivation: Lou plays his cards close to his rumpled vest, content to remain anonymous and unassuming while others posture. Focused and goal-oriented he does his best to remain professional in a line of work that's often anything but. If he feels he's not being extended that same courtesy, however, he's quick to demonstrate why respect is a wise policy. That stoicism hides layers of self-reproach. Having seen both sides of the law in full Lou doesn't so much regret his indiscretions as a police office as wish that he'd been a good enough man to accomplish real good with his position. He considers himself to be a failure as a father and demonstrates a sometimes misplaced protective streak as a result. After years of doing whatever it took to get ahead or stay afloat he's begun to let his better principles guide him and found that standing up for those who need it suits him better than he'd expected. Powers & Tactics: The drug lab Lou and his partner raided was experimenting with metahuman treatments, leading to him being doused in unstable chemicals and buried in rubble in the explosion that followed. As a result he can take on the attributes of any inorganic material he touches. Doing so greatly enhances his overall strength and durability, enough to shrug off small arms fire. The specific material he mimics determines the specific benefits or side effects he receives on top of this, such as making him more or less conductive, fire resistant or brittle. As his powers provide a distinct visual Lou prefers to use them only as a last resort, favouring discretion and relative anonymity unless he finds himself otherwise outmatched. Even without them he is a competent hand-to-hand fighter with impressive endurance. When required to buy time he will gladly let an opponent wear themselves out before moving in for a decisive finishing blow but when the person he is protecting comes under immediate threat he switches to a much more aggressive style, foregoing his own safety to end a fight more quickly. Power Descriptions: Lou takes on the appearance of the materials he mimics along with their properties. This extends to copying graffiti sprayed on a brick wall or yellow centre lines painted down a concrete road. Dents and cracks sustained while in a transformed state are translated into bruises and cuts when he reverts to flesh and blood. His powers do not extend to the clothes he wear; Lou goes through a lot of suits. Complications: Blood and Iron: Lou's son and ex-wife no longer live in Bedlam but were they in danger there are very few things that would keep him from immediately going to their aid. Cement Overshoes: Quitting the Scarpia Family family is a poor health decision, leaving in the middle of a job even more so. Taking out Lou would be a good way to build a rep and earn points with the higher ups all at once. Concrete Evidence: Lou goes out of his way to avoid using his powers unless there's no other choice. They draw the wrong kind of attention and getting spotted would effectively ruin any cover story he's using. Feet of Clay: Lou is trying to be a better man but he's not there yet. He's slow to trust and slower to let go of a grudge. Convincing him to take risks for strangers may take some doing and convincing him to ask for help is all but impossible. Glass Half Empty: Although he makes a point not to drink while on the job, Lou definitely drinks more than he should. In an unexpected emergency there's no guarantee of finding him sober or without a hangover. Golden Rule: Respect is met with respect. Disrespect is met with percussive correction. Steely Resolve: Though usually methodical and cautious once Lou has committed himself to a fight he's loathe to walk away. He'll take on impossible odds or weather fantastic amounts of punishment if it means keeping his word. Tin Badge: Many of Lou's former colleagues in the BCPD take issue with his metahuman status while others resent his newer ties with the Scarpia Family. Plenty don't see any reason to choose just one reason to hate him. Abilities: 8 + 6 + 12 + 4 + 8 + 4 = 42PP Strength: 18 / 26 (+4 / +8) Dexterity: 16 (+3) Constitution: 22 / 30 (+6 / +10) Intelligence: 14 (+2) Wisdom: 18 (+4) Charisma: 14 (+2) Combat: 16 + 12 = 28PP Initiative: +7 Attack: +8 Base, +10 Melee Defense: +8 (+6 Base, +2 Dodge Focus), +3 Flat-Footed Grapple: +14 / +18 Knockback: -3 Flat-Footed / -4 without Powers / -8 with Powers Saving Throws: 4 + 6 + 8 = 18PP Toughness: +8 / +12 (+6 Con, +2 Defensive Roll, +4 Enhanced Constitution) [Impervious 4] Fortitude: +10 / +14 (+6 Con, +4 Enhanced Constitution, +4) Reflex: +9 (+3 Dex, +6) Will: +12 (+4 Wis, +8) Skills: 148R = 37PP Bluff 8 (+10) Concentration 6 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Drive 2 (+5) Gather Information 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Investigate 13 (+15) Knowledge [Behavioral Sciences] 3 (+5) Knowledge [Civics] 8 (+10) Knowledge [Streetwise] 13 (+15) Knowledge [Tactics] 8 (+10) Language 2 (English [Native], Italian, Spanish) Medicine 6 (+10) Notice 11 (+15) Perform [Singing] 8 (+10) Search 8 (+10) Sense Motive 11 (+15) Stealth 12 (+15) Feats: 20PP All-Out Attack Attack Focus [Melee] 2 Connected Defensive Roll 1 Dodge Focus 2 Fast Task 2 [Feint, Startle] Improved Critical [Unarmed] 2 Improved Grab Improved Initiative Interpose Luck 2 Power Attack Startle Stunning Attack Uncanny Dodge [Auditory] Powers: 4 + 5 + 19 + 7 = 35PP Damage 2 (Boxing; Feats: Innate, Mighty) [4PP] (training) Device 1 (Earbud; 5PP Container, Flaws: Hard to Lose, Feats: Subtle) [5PP] Super-Senses 4 (Communication Link 4 [Other Earbuds], Feats: Subtle) [5DP] Alternate Form 4 (20PP Container [Active, Sustained], Drawback: Noticeable) [19PP] Enhanced Constitution 8 [8PP] Enhanced Strength 8 [8PP] Impervious 4 [4PP] Object Mimicry 1 (5PP Variable Power, Any Power, Multiple Powers at Once, Touch Range; Extras: Action [Free Action]) [7PP] DC Block ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT Unarmed [without Powers] Touch DC 21 Toughness Damage Unarmed [with Powers] Touch DC 25 Toughness Damage Totals: Abilities (42) + Combat (28) + Saving Throws (18) + Skills (37) + Feats (20) + Powers (35) - Drawbacks (0) = 180/217 Power Points