Post by Gront on Nov 3, 2010 23:50:14 GMT -5
Okay, so this is my pic/fic-a-day for November 3. Yeah, I'll bet some of you bastards didn't think I'd make it. Anyways, Grim seems to be the only one still interested in Fallen Angel, so I'm going to start a new series that I've thought through even less. Enjoy.
Chapter 1
Robert Burr was not a very nice man. He had always been greedy, so when, in one of the countless events in the world of Brawl that endowed its citizens with superpowers, he gained the ability to walk through walls, he immediately began a life of crime. At first, he rather predictably decided to rob banks and the like, but he eventually discovered a fondness (and proficiency) for murder, and began a rather profitable career as a contract killer. On this night, however, he was running for his life.
Earlier that day, Robert's contact from the Bonetail Foundation, one of the larger criminal organizations in Brawl, called to inform him that an anonymous client wanted to meet him to discuss a potential contract. After Robert agreed to the usual 15% finder's fee, his contact gave him an address and a time. The address was in a seldom-used part of the Brawl City's warehouse district. The time was 11:30 PM. At that time and place, it was practically guaranteed that Robert and his client wouldn't encounter any unwanted spectators while they conducted their business. Robert thanked his contact and hung up.
Robert arrived at the building precisely on time. He looked around for his client, but saw and heard nothing. He was about to enter the building to check for his client when someone around the corner spoke to him.
"Mister Burr, I presume?" The voice was unnaturally deep and had a slightly electronic tone to it. "Please approach the corner but do not look around it."
"Must be a popular guy," Robert thought. "I'm used to clients not wanting to be seen, but the voice changer is pretty rare." He approached the corner as instructed.
"Forgive me, Mister Burr," the voice said, "but I would like to confirm your expertise before entrusting this assignment to you. How many beings have you successfully killed?"
"I lost count around fifty," Robert said with pride.
"Wonderful. Have you ever regretted any of those kills? Pardon the prying question, but this task may try more than just your physical prowess, and I need to know you will not back down at a critical moment."
Robert chuckled. "It's fine," he said, still smiling. "There's not a job I've done that I regret, and not a job I can think of that I wouldn't do for the right price."
"Perfect," the voice said. Suddenly, a metallic claw shot around the corner and grabbed Robert by the collar of his shirt, hoisting him up and leaving his feet dangling more than a foot above the ground. Robert was too panicked to see any details about his attacker as he rounded the corner, but one thing that did catch his attention was the energy sword he raised, ready to strike. Robert activated his ability to slip through the claw's grasp and ran faster than he thought he could.
Robert stumbled, accidentally dodging a powerful energy blast flew right into where his head had been only a fraction of a second before. He phased through the wall of a nearby warehouse for cover, a tactic which quickly proved useless when a second energy blast ripped through the wall seconds later. A third struck one of the support beams inside the warehouse, and before he could react, Robert was covered from the waist down by a rain of steel and concrete. His legs were crushed in the fall, meaning that even if he used his power to escape, he would still be unable to escape his pursuer. Thus his fate was sealed, and the bringer of his demise walked slowly through the hole in the warehouse wall.
"You are quite able, I'll give you that," the deep, robotic voice from earlier said, coming closer. "However, your life is nothing short of a gross misallocation of resources that could better further my own ends, and I intend on setting things straight." The last thing Robert saw was the assailant's energy sword rise to strike.
It was around six in the morning when the Brawl City Police Department arrived at the scene in full force. In spite of the incredible amount of property damage that occurred in the city on a regular basis as the result of fights between the super-powered residents of the city, it was rare for damages to go unattributed to a specific fight. As such, when the BCPD received reports of a damaged warehouse without a brawl reported nearby, they suspected fowl play, a suspicion that was confirmed when the body of Robert Burr was found sliced in half amongst the wreckage.
The investigation was led by Major Daniel Ratherman, one of the senior officers on the force. Though he had no true powers aside from an incredible pain tolerance, he was known to have held his own against many of the "powered" Brawlers in a fight, and was undoubtedly one of the toughest beings on the force. Prior to becoming a police officer, he had also served in the navy and, as the result of a few particularly harrowing missions, was able to handle seeing some of the more gruesome and violent methods of death. Thus, when he saw the mangled body of Mr. Burr, partially crushed and cut cleanly in half across the midsection, he barely hesitated before resuming his breakfast of a bagel and some coffee.
"That's pretty rough. What've we got?" he asked the officer nearest him. The officer was Captain Christopher O'Neil, who had arrived at the scene a few minutes earlier than the Major.
"Name: Robert Burr, twenty-eight years old. Had the ability to pass through solid objects. Started work as a hitman roughly three years ago. Cause of death was either disembowelment or catastrophic blood loss; it's hard to tell which came first. Rigor mortis set in early, meaning he was engaged in rigorous physical activity immediately before death." O'Neil reported. Like Ratherman, O'Neil joined the BCPD as an unpowered civilian, however, after a near-fatal injury in the line of duty that left him brain-damaged and in a coma, he underwent a highly experimental procedure to replace parts of his brain with circuitry. The process not only restored O'Neil to consciousness, but also gave him the ability to gain a comprehensive understanding of an object with only a cursory scan. Unfortunately, this hindered O'Neil's once legendary reasoning abilities, rendering him, at first, incapable of drawing even the simplest conclusions from the data he gathered. He had slowly been improving, and was now able to reason only slightly less effectively than the average civilian, but he was still under the average logical capacity of an officer in the BCPD, and well below his previous talents. He also had a pad installed over his left eye that allowed him to project holograms that would help demonstrate the results of his scans to others. He used this device to show Major Ratherman more detail about the next part of his observations.
"The victim's cells were destroyed at the molecular level along the wound," O'Neil said, projecting a simulation of the process. "As far as we know, only dissolving solutions like acid or concentrated forms of certain types of energy are able to produce this effect. Similar patterns of molecular destruction can be found in the hole in the wall over there, as well as in the support beam which had previously held up the roof before it collapsed on top of Mr. Burr."
"Okay," Ratherman said, taking a sip of his coffee, "with that kind of damage, that means we have at least a Class Zeta Brawler causing anonymous damage. The Council needs to be informed. Anything else?"
"Yes, sir. An officer found this near the body," O'Neil said, holding up a small, translucent rock that had a slight white tint. "Mass: approximately sixteen grams, comprised entirely of an unknown substance. Said substance does not appear in any readily accessible database, but its structure suggests that it may have some magic- and energy-resisting properties. It is unknown whether the victim was carrying it, the attacker dropped it, or it came from a completely unrelated source."
"Alright, send it back to HQ as evidence." Ratherman said, turning to another officer. "Johnson, get me a line to the Council."
Deep underground many miles away, a man sat in shadow, looking at a computer screen. He secretly had been watching the entire police investigation, and the appearance of the unknown substance troubled him greatly. After performing some calculations, he became even more concerned.
"Damn," he said to himself. "He's close. Just a few more and he'll be unstoppable."
TO BE CONTINUED
Chapter 1
Robert Burr was not a very nice man. He had always been greedy, so when, in one of the countless events in the world of Brawl that endowed its citizens with superpowers, he gained the ability to walk through walls, he immediately began a life of crime. At first, he rather predictably decided to rob banks and the like, but he eventually discovered a fondness (and proficiency) for murder, and began a rather profitable career as a contract killer. On this night, however, he was running for his life.
Earlier that day, Robert's contact from the Bonetail Foundation, one of the larger criminal organizations in Brawl, called to inform him that an anonymous client wanted to meet him to discuss a potential contract. After Robert agreed to the usual 15% finder's fee, his contact gave him an address and a time. The address was in a seldom-used part of the Brawl City's warehouse district. The time was 11:30 PM. At that time and place, it was practically guaranteed that Robert and his client wouldn't encounter any unwanted spectators while they conducted their business. Robert thanked his contact and hung up.
Robert arrived at the building precisely on time. He looked around for his client, but saw and heard nothing. He was about to enter the building to check for his client when someone around the corner spoke to him.
"Mister Burr, I presume?" The voice was unnaturally deep and had a slightly electronic tone to it. "Please approach the corner but do not look around it."
"Must be a popular guy," Robert thought. "I'm used to clients not wanting to be seen, but the voice changer is pretty rare." He approached the corner as instructed.
"Forgive me, Mister Burr," the voice said, "but I would like to confirm your expertise before entrusting this assignment to you. How many beings have you successfully killed?"
"I lost count around fifty," Robert said with pride.
"Wonderful. Have you ever regretted any of those kills? Pardon the prying question, but this task may try more than just your physical prowess, and I need to know you will not back down at a critical moment."
Robert chuckled. "It's fine," he said, still smiling. "There's not a job I've done that I regret, and not a job I can think of that I wouldn't do for the right price."
"Perfect," the voice said. Suddenly, a metallic claw shot around the corner and grabbed Robert by the collar of his shirt, hoisting him up and leaving his feet dangling more than a foot above the ground. Robert was too panicked to see any details about his attacker as he rounded the corner, but one thing that did catch his attention was the energy sword he raised, ready to strike. Robert activated his ability to slip through the claw's grasp and ran faster than he thought he could.
Robert stumbled, accidentally dodging a powerful energy blast flew right into where his head had been only a fraction of a second before. He phased through the wall of a nearby warehouse for cover, a tactic which quickly proved useless when a second energy blast ripped through the wall seconds later. A third struck one of the support beams inside the warehouse, and before he could react, Robert was covered from the waist down by a rain of steel and concrete. His legs were crushed in the fall, meaning that even if he used his power to escape, he would still be unable to escape his pursuer. Thus his fate was sealed, and the bringer of his demise walked slowly through the hole in the warehouse wall.
"You are quite able, I'll give you that," the deep, robotic voice from earlier said, coming closer. "However, your life is nothing short of a gross misallocation of resources that could better further my own ends, and I intend on setting things straight." The last thing Robert saw was the assailant's energy sword rise to strike.
It was around six in the morning when the Brawl City Police Department arrived at the scene in full force. In spite of the incredible amount of property damage that occurred in the city on a regular basis as the result of fights between the super-powered residents of the city, it was rare for damages to go unattributed to a specific fight. As such, when the BCPD received reports of a damaged warehouse without a brawl reported nearby, they suspected fowl play, a suspicion that was confirmed when the body of Robert Burr was found sliced in half amongst the wreckage.
The investigation was led by Major Daniel Ratherman, one of the senior officers on the force. Though he had no true powers aside from an incredible pain tolerance, he was known to have held his own against many of the "powered" Brawlers in a fight, and was undoubtedly one of the toughest beings on the force. Prior to becoming a police officer, he had also served in the navy and, as the result of a few particularly harrowing missions, was able to handle seeing some of the more gruesome and violent methods of death. Thus, when he saw the mangled body of Mr. Burr, partially crushed and cut cleanly in half across the midsection, he barely hesitated before resuming his breakfast of a bagel and some coffee.
"That's pretty rough. What've we got?" he asked the officer nearest him. The officer was Captain Christopher O'Neil, who had arrived at the scene a few minutes earlier than the Major.
"Name: Robert Burr, twenty-eight years old. Had the ability to pass through solid objects. Started work as a hitman roughly three years ago. Cause of death was either disembowelment or catastrophic blood loss; it's hard to tell which came first. Rigor mortis set in early, meaning he was engaged in rigorous physical activity immediately before death." O'Neil reported. Like Ratherman, O'Neil joined the BCPD as an unpowered civilian, however, after a near-fatal injury in the line of duty that left him brain-damaged and in a coma, he underwent a highly experimental procedure to replace parts of his brain with circuitry. The process not only restored O'Neil to consciousness, but also gave him the ability to gain a comprehensive understanding of an object with only a cursory scan. Unfortunately, this hindered O'Neil's once legendary reasoning abilities, rendering him, at first, incapable of drawing even the simplest conclusions from the data he gathered. He had slowly been improving, and was now able to reason only slightly less effectively than the average civilian, but he was still under the average logical capacity of an officer in the BCPD, and well below his previous talents. He also had a pad installed over his left eye that allowed him to project holograms that would help demonstrate the results of his scans to others. He used this device to show Major Ratherman more detail about the next part of his observations.
"The victim's cells were destroyed at the molecular level along the wound," O'Neil said, projecting a simulation of the process. "As far as we know, only dissolving solutions like acid or concentrated forms of certain types of energy are able to produce this effect. Similar patterns of molecular destruction can be found in the hole in the wall over there, as well as in the support beam which had previously held up the roof before it collapsed on top of Mr. Burr."
"Okay," Ratherman said, taking a sip of his coffee, "with that kind of damage, that means we have at least a Class Zeta Brawler causing anonymous damage. The Council needs to be informed. Anything else?"
"Yes, sir. An officer found this near the body," O'Neil said, holding up a small, translucent rock that had a slight white tint. "Mass: approximately sixteen grams, comprised entirely of an unknown substance. Said substance does not appear in any readily accessible database, but its structure suggests that it may have some magic- and energy-resisting properties. It is unknown whether the victim was carrying it, the attacker dropped it, or it came from a completely unrelated source."
"Alright, send it back to HQ as evidence." Ratherman said, turning to another officer. "Johnson, get me a line to the Council."
Deep underground many miles away, a man sat in shadow, looking at a computer screen. He secretly had been watching the entire police investigation, and the appearance of the unknown substance troubled him greatly. After performing some calculations, he became even more concerned.
"Damn," he said to himself. "He's close. Just a few more and he'll be unstoppable."
TO BE CONTINUED
