ic Drugs & Death, Inc

[Raveled]

Miras stopped on a lot that surrounded on three sides by tall brick buildings and on the last side by a chainlink fence with razor wire at the top. The space had once been a grassy sward facing the ocean; now it was a sandy, gravel-choked and weed-infested backlot that face piles of coal dust. Miras had looked out over this place many, many nights, and not even considered the illegal activities it might be hosting. The building itself was a long, low structure built of red brick; there were skylights over most of it, but the glass panels had been broken or fallen out a long time ago and most of the spaces were covered with plywood or cardboard.

 

"That's where they are," she said, nodding at the building. "And as for plans? &*@$ it, I'm angry. Let's go in and bust drug-dealing heads." The mage stalked up to the door, summoning fire in one hand and reaching out to the door handle with the other. She gripped the handle to the aluminum door, and every muscle in her body clenched at once. The night air -- technically very early morning air, actually -- was filled with a low hum, and Miras felt fire and pain race through her entire frame and settle in her heart. It only took a second, but it was one that lasted an eternity; and then the electrical current snapped off and she staggered back, sinking to her knees and clutching at her chest. It took her a moment to remember how to breathe, and she struggled to suck in air. "God, dammit," she gasped. "When the, hell do, druggies, wire the, front door, to the (@*%ing city grid!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Fast-Forward threw his sandwich aside. "Geez, kid, you all right?" He zipped over to Miras' side and checked her over, using his limited knowledge of first aid to determine she seemed as all right as she could be. "Those bastards aren't so smart." He zipped up to the front door and extended his hand just in front of it, and to the others it looked like his hand was vibrating at super-speed - a vibration that seemed to swell from his hand to encompass the door. When the door was 'vibrating' all the way, its form lost in a slight visual blur, Fast-Forward kicked it open, dodging out of the way of any snipers waiting for him on the other side. (This wasn't his first forced entry!) 

 

"Electricity's fast," he said confidently. "But I'm faster!" 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight eyed Fast-Forward's discarded sandwich longingly, then sighed. I really miss food.

 

Well, looks like it's go time. She concentrated, and her skin began to glow and shimmer as though lit from within. "Better watch ourselves. Most drug dealers don't have traps like that." She stepped through the door after FF, shooting her gaze about warily, one hand raised in readiness.

[Raveled]

Miras climbed to her feet, still cursing lightly under her breath. She walked confidently, angrily, towards the building, and at the last moment stepped to the side and stepped through the wall next to the door. There was no way she was going to set of another trip wire or pressure plate if she didn't exert any pressure, after all. Inside the building was mostly one long room, an expanse of mostly-bare concrete littered with a few broken boxes and rusting metal shelves. The side rooms held the normal sort of junk that accumulated in abandoned buildings. What was distinctly lacking was a complicated lab churning out street chemicals and an evil, bald scientist cackling about his plan to take over the world.

The space was empty, and yet the trap on the door hadn't been an accident or static electricity. The heroes prowled around the space, trying to find a clue. It was Fastforward who noticed that where the pipes came out of the wall was still a sharp cut; it hadn't been worn down with age. Starlight searched the rooms and found a particular square of cardboard that wasn't soggy from too many nights left out. Behind it was a keypad; Miras tried out a dozen combinations in a few seconds, until the building was filled with a demonic hissing.

The trio watched at the entire concrete floor slid into the ground, riding on pneumatics hidden in the pipes. It continued into the sewer, stopping a few inches above the murky water. Miras floated down and examined the sewer as best she could, following a line of LEDs that stretched out into the distance.

She looked down at the waste water, making a face beneath her hood. "If I had to launder these robes, I'd be really angry," she said, stepping carefully down into the muck. "Oh Prophet, and it's cold!"

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight jumped back reflexively when the floor descended. She peered down into the newly-revealed depths, letting off a little illumination to chase back the shadows. She hissed in a breath through her teeth when she saw the sewer. This can't be good.

 

Nowhere to go but down. She jumped into the pit, levitating slowly down into the tunnel, stopping a few inches above the water (she hoped it was just water). She saw the glowing lights dotting a line into the darkness, and nodded her head in that direction. "I guess we know which way to go?" Or which way someone wants us to go, she reflected, remembering the trap on the door.

[Avenger Assembled]

Fast-Forward was left with a choice to make as he studied the situation - the kind of choice faced by many a hero in a crisis situation. All right, it's dark down there and it's unfamiliar territory. If I run too far ahead, I could get caught up in something bad. He was confident in his ability to avoid any walls, even going at full tilt, but he'd been taken off-guard by various traps over the years enough to know that there were no guarantees even at super-speed. "But on the other hand, that water smells like crap. And if I go in it, I'm gonna smell like crap," he said aloud, a moment before he joined the women down inside the tunnel by the expedient of running down the walls and across the surface of the water, so fast his feet didn't even sink beneath the surface. "Race you there!" he called, zipping past them faster than the eye could see. 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight's hair whipped back as Flash-Forward blurred by. She brushed a few strands from her eyes, blinking, before setting off after him at a much slower pace, floating just above the surface of the foul-smelling water. She let herself glow just brightly enough to light the way ahead, casting eerie shadows that flickered and danced along the walls as she moved.

 

After a moment, she sighed. "Miras..." She broke off, uncomforatable, then made herself continue. "I'm sorry about your friend." She was quiet for another moment, then said, "I know what drugs do to a person. And, uh, I'm sorry that that happened to someone you cared about. Really."

 

She found herself searching for something else to say, so she said, "We're going to get the bastards who did this." Oh, real eloquent, Sam.

[Raveled]

Miras ducked and covered her face as Fastforward's accelerated departure lifted a rooster tail of dirty water in his wake. She and Starlight waited as the water settled, and Miras gave a sigh. "I didn't really know her," she admitted. "I just saw her at meetings. And then I wasn't seeing her anymore, and I got worried." She rubbed at one arm with her hand, the movements centered around her elbow and moving inwards. When she realized what she was doing, the magus snatched her hand away, sticking them straight at her sides. After a moment though, she gave a sheepish laugh and relaxed. "I guess it's true that you never really get over addiction," she said. "You just let it stop letting it control your life."

 

She shook her head, anger surging up in her again. "It's just... Allison did beat it. She cut it out of her life. I remember her talking about finding a new job, at a place she really liked and she liked her co-workers and her managers and the shifts were good and everything was perfect. Then she found out one of the managers was dealing from the loading docks, and when Allison tried to report it she was the one who got fired. She was doing so well to keep clean... and then this comes and it's like no time at all has passed." She shook her head sharply to dispel the mood. "You're right. We are going to find the person behind this, and we're going to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else."

 

Miras set off into the sewer, following the string of lights into the distance. The journey didn't take very long, and in moments she was standing beside Fastforward looking at a steel door set into the end of the sewer. The door was shiny and new, and where there would normally be a keyhole there was instead a number pad, with a red LED burning steadily at the top. The mage looked closely at it, but there wasn't any helpful piece of gaffer tape with a combination written on it. "Anyone want to try guessing this time," she asked, tapping the door experientially. It didn't shock her, but it did sound very heavy, solid, and thick.

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight leaned in towards the door, studying it cautiously. "Might be able to cut through this," she suggested. "Eventually. Might trigger an alarm or something, though. Don't want to risk trying to 'port myself through - could end up inside a wall." She looked at Miras. "Can you phase through this, like you did before?" She considered. "Though that would mean if there's trouble on the other side, you'd walk into it alone. One of you could try the number pad with your super-speed? Though that might also set off an alarm..."

She shrugged irritably. "Hell, I don't know. This isn't really my specialty."

[Avenger Assembled]

"You ladies wanna see a trick?" invited Fast-Forward as he walked up to the door. "I don't actually have super-speed like Miras here," he said, waving idly at the young woman. "What I do is control time." He pulled back a fist. "So I accelerate time around my arm, all without aging it to death, by the way-" sure enough, his arm was blurring as he pulled it back, "and then hit this thing with the force of a thousand years of punching!" He hit the door with a blur of impossible motion, the noise of his blow like a hummingbird mixed with a jackhammer, and it BOOMED, an echoing noise that filled the hallway. "and stop time with my punch before I pulp my whole upper body!" He hit the door again with his other fist, a slow, rhythmic metronome of hyper-accelerated blows. "If they come out shooting, I'm super-hard to hit," he said breezily, "so don't worry about me." 

 

"For me, it was cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine," he went on, having evidently caught part of their conversation while he was zipping around the tunnel waiting for them. "Twenty-five years clean, and I still think about it sometimes. Goddamned coke." He didn't sound like he was joking at all when he said that. "I think about these bastards on the same streets as my kids, on the same streets when _I_ was a kid...at least when there are vampires in the neighborhood, they're usually listening to Bowie, you know what I'm saying?" 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight's ears rang from the din of Fast-Forward's assault on the door. "Not bad," she admitted, grudgingly impressed. "Sounds a lot more complicated than what I do. Mainly I just...you know. Shoot light." She paused, watching him pound away. "Guess we're not worried about being sneaky, huh?"

 

She glanced down the tunnel behind them, and found herself speaking without knowing why. "It was beer for me. At first. Then it was weed. Takes the edge off. Then hey, let's try Oxy. But why stop there? Let's give coke a shot, just one time." She snorted. "Then hell, I've come this far, might as well go for some heroin. Just to see what it's like. Just to get me through the rest of this day."

 

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "Well. Here I am." She was silent for another moment, then, "And who the hell's Bowie?"

[Raveled]

Miras frowned as she saw Fast-forward draw back and prepare to strike. He didn’t look like one of those huge, muscle-bound types, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had super-dense reptile muscles and could lift a car with those noodle arms.

Richard Cline’s fist struck the metal door, and suddenly there was a Looney-Toons style fist-shaped hole in the door. A couple more blows cleared a sizeable chunk of it out; beyond the door was a genuine man-cave, with a long, plush couch along one wall opposite a huge television, and racks and racks of game consoles and A/V equipment. If there was any alarm, it had to be already screaming, so Miras had Fast-forward step back while Starlight cut the rest of the door away.

The trio stepped through onto plush carpets, the mage’s robes dripping stinking, salty water on the floor. Before anyone had a chance to dry off or admire the electronics or look for a stashed drug lab, they heard heavy steps coming down the stairs from above. They watched as a clean-shaven man in his early thirties stepped down into the basement. His Oxford shirt was partly unbuttoned, and he had a cell phone in one hand and an open bottle of beer in the other. He goggled at them for a moment, taking in the sight of three strangers standing in his rumpus room, having stepped through a door in the wall; then he turned and sprinted upwards, taking the stairs two at a time.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Dumbass," commented Fast-Forward at the back of the fleeing drug lord before zipping forward and tapping the fleeing criminal on the back of the head, instantly 'pausing' him in mid-run, the temporal distortions around him looking like old-fashioned error bars on a paused VCR tape. "And...hey, wait a minute!" He turned to Starlight. "Bowie!? David Bowie? The Thin White Duke? Ziggy Stardust? Jared from Labyrinth?" He stared at the young woman, then threw his hands up in the air as if praying for a miracle. When he was done, with a sigh, he turned back to the others and said, "This guy can hear what we're saying, so let's not go telling tales out of school. Except how we're gonna find where the drugs are, kick his ass, and then kick his boss's ass too."

 

He took the beer out of the guy's hand and went on, "What is this, Belgian? You Commie!" He poured it out disgustedly, right there on the paralyzed man's good shoes. "Too good for American, eh?" 

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight took in her surroundings with a glance. Not exactly what I was expecting. I figured some sort of evil lair with lots of guards and spiked pits, not some guy's mancave.

 

She stepped forward, there was a blink of light, and when she finished her step she was standing directly in front of the frozen man. She waved a hand in front of his glassy eyes. "Nice trick. Didn't know you could do that." She leaned in close to the man's face. "Okay, listen up, s---bird. We have a couple questions. Question number one: Who the f--- are you? Question number two: Where are the drugs? Question number three: Are you actually this stupid?" She glanced at the other two.  "That about cover it?"

[Raveled]

"Pretty much, yeah." Miras walked to the bottom of the stairs. She didn't think her own frame would fit next to Fast-forward and Starlight and the white-collar drug lord. "Ask him somewhere along the way if he's feeling at all remorseful. Or if we should smash the lab and drag him straight to the cops." She paused, watching the man's frozen body. "You know, he really can't answer us if he can't move, Fast-forward."

 

As they stood there, they could hear heavy footfalls the floor above them. The door at the top of the staircase was flung open and a man in a silver and black armor was standing there, a large 3 emblazoned his chest piece, pointing a chrome pistol square at Fast-forward. "I'm afraid you're going to have to walk away unsatisfied, people. Or, you know, crawl away. Your choice."

[Avenger Assembled]

Tick tick tick - it was a rough situation, but it was nothing new to Fast-Forward. Better make sure he doesn't shoot the girls, though.

 

"Don't you know _anything_?" declared Richard, spreading his arms wide and getting the gunman's attention. "I"m the fastest man alive! I _run_ away!" Fast-Forward smacked the man across the face, instantly freezing him solid. "Not from chumps, though. Dumbass," the speedster declared, pulling the gun out of the 'paused' mastermind's hand. "You pulled a gun on _me_." He looked to the others. "Listen, this wears off after a minute, so if either of you have anything that ties people up or knocks them out all the way, now's the time." He cracked his knuckles. "I'm gonna start stripping this guy in about a minute here if none of you have any better ideas. I don't want him pulling some death ray out of his ass and setting the place on fire."

[Raveled]

GM

 

"Dammit, Three, don't make speeches!" The voice was high, and harsh, and coming from behind the frozen mercenary with the future-tech gun. Another armored form bobbed into view, throwing an arm around Three and pulling the stiff body back and out of the door frame. "We're clear! Take the shots!" As the pair of silver-and-black figures fell back, two more ran into view. These pair had 1 and 7 on their chestplates, and they quickly filled the top of the stairs with blaster fire. Fast-forward didn't just have speed on his side, though; the veteran metahuman had faced small military groups before, and knew the sort of ways they attacked. He was able to dance around their energy bolts, though a couple did get close enough to raise the hairs on his arms.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Raveled

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight raised an eyebrow at the armored squad. "Who the hell are you supposed to be? The Learn-2-Count Crew? A barbershop quartet?" The scene was lit up by a flash of light, and she was standing behind the one with the 1 emblazoned on his chestplate. "Doesn't matter. You're working with drug dealers." She thrust out a fist before he could turn, and slammed a burst of brilliant energy right into the small of his back, denting his armor. There was another flash, and she was right back where she was before. "So four-" she glanced  after the paralyzed guy - "make that three against three, huh? You don't want to go get the rest of your little conveniently-numbered friends, make it a fair fight?"

[Raveled]

The leader of the group, or at least the one ordering everyone around, took the blast full in the back and stumbled forward. He spun and fired, but the photokinetic was already back in the basement and he just smashed a chrome object d'art. "Dammit, we're getting overrun here!" He turned back to the stairwell, putting a hand up to where his ear would be. "Evens, did you find an entry point yet?" He paused, listening to something and glancing around the battlefield.

Miras took the opportunity to snake up the stairs and get a line of sight on one of the soldiers, with a bold 7 on his chest. "Take some free advice," she said, flicking her fingers at the armored woman's face. "You don't want to be here. Why not go relax on a beach somewhere?" Miras's fingers moved like she was flicking water, but it was mote of smoke and cloud that traveled across the space and clung to the soldier's face. They cleared in a moment, and the soldier found herself standing on a tropical paradise. A man approached her holding a tall, iced glass with some red and alcoholic in it; she waved the illusion away, pointing her gun all around her.

1 took stock of the situation, pushing out a breath, "No, Evens, pull back. We're getting out of here. A payday isn't any use when you're in Blackstone! Seven, link your suit to mine and I'll fly you out of here. Five, grab Three and aim for sky!" There was a moment of rocket and flame and exhaust and noise, and when it cleared the armored mercenaries had disappeared out the front window, towing their disabled companion with them.

Miras waited a moment, then crept out of the basement and looked around the floor. It was a spacious, well-appointed place, with modern furnishings and subtle touches of opulence. "Well, it's nice to see that you can get a good price when you sell your soul, at least." She turned to the stairs, watching the man Fast-forward had frozen. "Richard, is there any way to unfreeze him just enough to see his reaction to us? It's no fun when the evil doers can't talk back."

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's a pain in the ass, but sure," Fast-Forward tagged the man a few times, his brow furrowed in concentration, then suddenly put his finger over the man's lips as soon as the latter's eyes starting blinking. "All right, dumbass," he went on as if they'd never been interrupted. "Your no-name goon squad is running home to Mama, or wherever they send villains who can't handle a little action. Try something," he said confidently as he took his hand away. "Go ahead, really, I'd love to actually smack you around for real. And I'm the nice one!" he went on, shooting a wink back at Starlight and Miras. "There's only one way you get to go to jail with your mug no uglier than it already is, gruesome. You can either talk now about the whole damn operation, or the ladies here can play Pong using your face for a while. Personally, my money's on the blonde."

[Raveled]

The man's eyes flicked between Fast-forward, Miras, and Starlight, his mouth working like he was trying to get a nasty taste out of it. "Okay," he said, his tone curt. "What do you want?"

Miras blinked, looking at the other heroes. She had expected some resistance, at least a perfunctory claim to innocence. "You're not going to try and deny it," she asked. "Maybe try a few rounds of 'it's not me, you've got the wrong guy, this is all a a mistake'?"

The man's neck wriggled, and after a minute they realized he was trying to shrug with frozen shoulders. "You walked out of my hidden door," he said. "Unless you're sewer folk getting really angry at gentrification, I know who you are." His gaze settled on Fast-forward. "I've seen you around on TV. When you do the recreation for your little show, don't get one of those fat actors to play me. I put work in the gym and I want it to show."

Miras shoved herself right in the man's face. "Hello! Earth to yuppie scumbag, you're going to jail! Does that not get through to you?"

He sneered right back at her, anger and pride twisting his expression into something ugly. "I made a product, a better painkiller than any opiate derivative. But the FDA said it was too addictive and the company downsized the team, me included. So I found another market for it. I'm a capitalist, that's all."

"You're a murder," Miras retorted, poking him hard in the chest. "You put poison on the street. People are dead because you decided it would be easier to sell street drugs than get a new job!"

"Some drug addict ODs on my stuff, I really doubt the city is worse off."

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight felt a cold knot of anger constrict in her chest. She seized him by the collar, hurled him to the ground, and planted one of her heavy combat boots on his throat, applying just enough pressure to make him know she could apply more if she wanted to. "You know," she said, struggling to keep her voice level, "you're actually right about one thing. Nobody cares if some junkie ODs. Another piece of gutter trash gets dead. Who gives a s--t, right?"

She leaned down, and her eyes flared with light. "And you know who people hate even more than junkies? Dealers. So ask yourself this. If nobody cares when a junkie dies, who's gonna care if some smartass yuppie drug dealer is never seen or heard from again?" She curled one hand into a fist and let it blaze into a white-hot star of energy, "Nobody, that's who. So lose the attitude, or you'll lose it anyway and a hell of a lot more besides."

[Raveled]

The man squirmed on the ground under Starlight’s boot, a touch of fear in his voice. “Hey, hey! You aren’t allowed to hurt me, you’re superheroes, I know the rules! I gave up, call the cops and leave me alone!”

 

“Well, that’s kind of a funny thing.” Miras walked over to the man and squatted near his head, her tone conversational. “See, me and Richard, we’re superheroes. We’ve got the powers, the costumes, the moon base, all that stuff. But her?” She jerked a thumb at Starlight. “We just picked her up ‘cause we like her moxie. She’s not really part of the team.”

 

Miras stood back up and walked over to the foot of the stairs, near where Richard was standing. “I mean if we see any head crushing, we’ll be morally obligated to stop it. But you have a big place and we have to find the drug lab if we’re going to find it.” She paused and added, “It’d be terrible if we handed the wrong yuppie drug lord to the police.”

 

Asli knew what she was doing wasn’t really a heroic thing, leaving this guy to squirm on the floor and imagine his head getting stomped flat. On the other hand, this guy was a scumbag who maybe deserved to have his head stomped in. Just a little bit. But on the gripping hand if this was Starlight first time out, she shouldn’t be learning habits like this. Miras started forward to pull her back, when the guy finally started yelling. “Second floor! It’s in the guest room, the extra bedroom! It’s all in there, just take a look! God dammit, tell this woman to take her boot off my face.”

Miras turned to Richard, taking the steps two at a time. “Watch him,” she said, and then there was a blur and she was gone.

[R. Bluefish]

Starlight glanced down at the guy under her boot. Now that her initial surge of anger had worn off, her leg was starting to get tired. She pressed her boot down once more, meaningfully, before carefully stepping off him. "Not like you're going anywhere. Oh, and by the way, hire better goons next time. Ones less likely to cut and run at the first sign of trouble."

She leaned against the wall, hands in her pockets, before glancing up at Fast-Forward. "So, what's the plan? We just find out where he's making the stuff and blow it sky high?" She thought for a moment, then added, "Or report it to the cops, I suppose. But hell, are we pretty much done? No more Doze, hooray for us?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Time was I'd just have blown it away, rather than let the boys in blue send it up their noses or sell it back on the street at a markup." said Richard. "But the local..." For a moment it looked like he'd been about to use an entirely different word for talking about the police. "Freedom City cops are usually reliable. These days," Fast-Forward added with some heat. This guy's gonna be played by the fattest, sweatiest guy I can find. Actually, even better..."As for you making it onto the show, kid, it's probably not gonna happen." He knelt down till he was almost within striking distance of the fallen druglord. "You see, our show's about supercrime, so we talk about people with flashy costumes, cool powers, the stuff the fans really like." He looked around the room and added, "You're just a small-time punk with a small-time operation, so maybe you'll show up in a kiddie anti-drug commercial or something? "Don't sell drugs, so you don't get your butt kicked by superheroes?"" He looked up at Starlight. "I think that works, whaddya think?"