"Hold on a minute. As long as we're on the subject of preparedness..." Marcus reached up and felt around the sewer's ceiling, and sure enough, he found a power main running along its length. Sensing the powerful current moving within, he guessed... no longer than a few seconds? Only one way to find out. Grabbing it with his right hand, he activated his HUD. "Prepare major power draw protocol." His HUD crackled to life, displaying his current capacitance at 2%. 'Wow, I didn't think it was that low. Good thing I stopped us, I'm nowhere near ready to fight right now.'
"Stand back, this should only take a few seconds." His HUD gave a beep, indicating his suite was ready for the incoming stress. Marcus took in a deep breath and started the drain. Lightning crackled from his hands as he did so, and the figure displayed on his HUD made a steady climb upwards. 15%... 35%... 50%... 75%...
A few seconds later, he released the wire with a gasp, and his HUD let off another beep, this time to signify the power draw was complete. 100% capacitance. "Okay, I'm good to go. We should move quickly. I have a feeling this thing won't stick around for long."
"So this could take a while while we chip down the blob. Alright, that's fine by me." Lina said as they walked, paying attention to Blizzard as she spoke. "I've never fought a blob. Mostly just more... Em... Solid threats, so this should be interesting."
The stink in the sewer didn't exactly bother Lina, but the smell wasn't exactly pleasing either. "Hm. I've never really been in a sewer before, like most normal people. Then again, we're not really normal people. Is there a 3-dimensional aspect to these at some point? Like a lower level or floor?" Lina asked, genuinely not knowing the answer.
While Faraday charged up, Blizzard made things ready so he wouldn't get wet by freezing the sewer water as they went along the path. "There shouldn't be." she answered Persephone. "It should just be straight ahead, backwards or to the sides. No down. The only up obviously being to get out of the sewers."
Once Faraday was charged up, they kept going, Blizzard hovering over the sewer water to freeze it. "Yeah, I agree." she said to Faraday saying to move quickly. "We want to take care of the blob as soon as possible so that it doesn't cause any more harm. We don't want another street like the one we just saw..." She clenched her fist in half-anger. "Nothing that does that deserves to go on. We'll find it and defeat it. Nothing more, nothing less."
The change in the waters unsettled Morph, as it was vulnerable in its open state. Gradually retracting the sacs, it settled into a more compact state, with large sections of chitin taking shape, protecting the soft underbelly, the claws retracting into tiny hooks on the underside of Moprh. The shell took the colour of the ceiling, while the soft fleshy parts camouflaged themselves as moss. After that, as a little subtle touch, Morph let liquid secret out of the pores, giving the impression of a raised wet lump in the ceiling caused by damage or where some worker was a little overzealous with the concrete. Morph mimicked the foot of a slug, it slowly crawled away from its resting place, slowly but surely to the location of the BioCorp building, directly opposite to Seraphim. After all, it was only a matter of time until they noticed the carnage Morph had wrecked in the street above.
Waldemar looked on in bewilderment at the scene, he was sure that he had hit the villains pistol, and yet he had seen the unmistakable impact of the bullet on the asphalt in a straight line behind it, and weirder still was the slight delay before he had 'tossed' away his pistol which was now nowhere to be seen. As he brought out his detonator and opened his coat to reveal the rows of explosives it contained, Waldemar silently wondered if this had somehow been his plan, and that he had actually missed with his first shot.
He finally snapped out of it when Arlana spoke over the cellphone and leveled his rifle at the villain again, now brandishing his detonator and seemingly daring them to do anything to hurt him, it truly seemed like he intended to blow himself up unless they let him have his way. Trying his best to aim at the small detonator the villain held in his hands and wondering if hitting it would actually help and not just make him trigger the explosives, Waldemar was deep in concentration as the message from Kurt came through on the cell, just a short "I can." in response to Arlana.
Moments later the person flickered briefly, like the image of a TV with bad reception, and as Kurt let his cloak fall away and fired some kind of energy bolt at him the flickering returned, only even more visibly. As the person, or image, focused itself again Kurt sent through another message.
"Guys, don't know if you saw that, but this isn't our perp. It's some kind of decoy. The real guy's probably fled the scene..."
Waldemar cursed, of course it was, seemed incredibly obvious now that Kurt had figured it out, if he had half a functioning brain he should have realized it when the bullet had passed through his pistol and impacted behind him, now the villain had a head start on them. His mood didn't exactly improve either when a metallic object up and left from a nearby tree faster then he could spin his rifle around, letting whatever decoy the villain had used escape as well.
"...but I think I know how to find him. If you can, follow my signal and keep your distance."
His mood was marginally improved as Kurt finished his message however, apparently he had a plan to stop the villain still, despite their little distraction here. "Got it, I'll be following from a distance, should I try to keep your position within line of sight?" He asked over the phone as he went back to the fire escape and descended from the roof, meeting up with Arlana as he used the phone to home in on Kurt's signal so he would be able to follow him.
Marcus walked alongside his comrades, his eyes sweeping along the walls to the sewer. He'd been in them before, back before he became Faraday, as he was often dispatched to repair broken power lines and assist construction crews in building new ones. The brick walls where lined with mold and water, a result of the city's recent neglect of this borough's infrastructure. 'I can't count how many calls we got complaining that the sewers where spiraling out of control. The city should just fix the respirators down here and be done with it.'
As they moved deeper into the sewers, Marcus started to to notice something odd - the ceiling above him was being tinted with some strange, dark fluid. 'Water wouldn't leave marks like that. What's going on here?' Looking ahead, he saw something even stranger. To the untrained eye, it would just appear to be more neglected sewer, some shattered concrete covered in moss. But as Marcus looked closer, he noticed the texture was... off. And the fluids covering it seemed to match the liquid trailing behind them. Silently, he motioned for Blizzard and Persephone to stop and back up. Reaching up, he touched the power main, took a few steps away from the mass, and let loose a massive surge through the wire. A sound like a gunshot let loose as a bolt of electricity surged down towards the mass...
Morph waited above where it has nested. To the average observer, it was just some moss-covered concrete. A remnant of the neglect of the sewers in this block. At first he saw a man with goggles, he seemed to be quite cautious in his step, avoiding the water as much as possible. Then he saw a woman with a giant sword and then nothing else as the sword partially blocked its view. Morph cursed, there could be any number of Seraphim agents there. No doubt these were the ones who dared to call themselves Morph's predators - Seraphim. No doubt they had seen what carnage it could unleash on the street above, it hoped that Seraphim would take that as a warning, but no. They had to play the hero. Still, as the group approached, in what others would describe as fear but was more of instinctual self-preservation, Morph secreted more of the fluid, ready to turn it into an impetuous flow. The man was now reaching up to the power main, Morph didn't anticipated what would happen next.
[HEADING=1]
...BZZZT...
[/HEADING]
Suddenly a bolt of electricity surged towards Morph, reflexively it calmed up inside the chitin shell, but that made no difference. Morph got the full brunt of it. As the current ran through its mass and muscle, bits of Morph twitched and a memory fragment of its creator was jolted into its head - it was of him linking up a dead frog to an electrical circuit and watching it move. Fighting the current, Morph let the chitin completely cover itself, every bit of exposed flesh covered by a shell. Legs jutted out, half-tendril and half-claw, like some strange mockery of an insect. Channels opened throughout its body, from the stomach to the pores, a potent mix if Morph had the time to let the acid get concentrated. As when mixed with the liquid of the sewers and its secretions, it was only mildly acidic, but better than nothing. A giant monstrosity stood there where the concrete was, the few bits of light reflecting off the wet chitin. Morph was ready.
Blizzard stopped when Faraday motioned for her to do so. She prepared by freezing the water up ahead as much as she could before he let out an electrical surge. It hit whatever had apparently been on the ceiling, which she could only assume was what had consumed all those people on the street. She was right in thinking it was a blob.
There was little time for words, so she tried to keep it short. "I'll freeze parts of it, and you two work on breaking parts of it off so I can shoot them with my laser!" She began freezing the blob with her powers, a blue stream of frost could be seen coming from her hands. She also aimed her powers towards the ceiling in order to get the blob down to them. The sewer water was frozen so that it would land on that if it didn't land on either side. The process of freezing the blob was taking a while, since it was more solid than the water, but it was working as the side of the blob that faced Blizzard slowly froze over.
"Ahaha! Just like old times!" Lina said, as she lifted her sword off her shoulder and was at the ready with it now, knees bent, sword a little to her side, with the point facing the frozen parts of Morph. She took a moment to consider how best to charge her sword. The creature seemed to be pained by electricity, freezing it was still in the process of being verified to work, and fire... She didn't really think extreme heat would do much, but she could try some other time, she supposed. Plenty of blobs in the world. She decided on ice, and, gripping her sword tightly, she inhaled deeply. The moisture that had accumulated on the sword began to freeze, and the water vapor around the sword was visible, like a breath on a cold winter's day. The sword had reached near antarctic temperatures, and though it was not as potent as Blizzard, it was sure to afflict those not well suited to the cold.
Wasting no more time, Lina saw that a good enough portion of the large blob was now frozen, and, while she didn't anticipate that she could cut it all off in one clean blow, she knew she could chip it off bit by squishy bit. She leaped at and with the great power in her legs and flew above it. Her sword, however, was held downward and, upon reaching within range, Lina made a great swing upward, sword brought steady to her front, pointing forward after. She'd managed to take off a sizeable chunk with her frigid sword. She spun back around quickly, in position to defend now, facing the monster's back.
'So this is is the... thing... that killed those civilians...' Marcus could hear his teeth grind together, a cold mote of anger welling up in his stomach. With Lina out of his field of view, he could focus on attacking this monster without fear of hurting his comrades. It would still be best, though, if he could avoid firing through the air where he could, at least for now. He could never control them in humid air, after all.
He quickly checked his power levels, and found them to be at a satisfactory 75%. 'It's a good thing I had that power line take the brunt of that shock. Something that strong would normally drain quite a bit more.' Taking in a deep breath, he extended his hands out and started charging another bolt, this one meant to arc directly at the blob. "Hey! If you can talk, you'd better give me a fucking good reason not to fry you right here!"
Frozen, then shattered, then shouted at. Morph was puzzled why the man with goggles angry? All it had one was to sustain itself, just like herbivores with plants and humans with their hotdogs. Morph could only reply to the man to the only way it could, by responding to the threats to itself and eliminating them. But one emotion crept into its mind, one Morph hadn't experienced since its birth: anger. Morph wanted to burn calories at a rate that would produce enough heat to burn through the ice and burn through the bloodhounds of Seraphim as a show of literally burning rage. But that would put itself at risk, not to mention sewer gas, a volatile mix of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides just waiting for a naked flame to light up the town. There was no point to that approach if the end result was death all round.
It scoured the memory fragments of its creator, looking for another approach, as he appeared to be logical, if somewhat erratic and had a handy database of proteins, the ones that Felix had found interesting still rich in detail. His mind would hold the answers. The problem was weaving through the amount of junk memories, nevertheless that problem went away if Morph concentrated hard enough. And there it was. How was it that fish survived in the freezing Arctic and Antarctic Oceans? Well, they had a protein for that. A protein that gave freeze tolerance, not stopping the freezing process completely but made sure that the biological tissues survived the ordeal. Maybe playing dead was worth the indignity...
Production was switched from acid to producing the AFP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze_protein]. Morph let the bundle of amino acids flood its system, in hope to save as much biomass as possible. The man with the goggles looked like he was charging up something, maybe that was where the electricity came from? In anticipation Morph let the flesh under the chitin shell turn into something not unlike the infamous electric insulator known as rubber. However, at this point, Morph had turned to playing it by ear ans wasn't completely sure whether the change would block a sufficient amount of electricity to soften the blow. In a flash of impulse, Morph used a clawed appendage to pin the man to the wall, changing the palm of the sinister hand to a mouth and began to speak.
It seemed to be working, as Persephone broke off the bits that Blizzard had frozen already, and they were big enough for her lasergun to handle. She reached into her holster, using one hand to still freeze the blob, and shot at the bits that had fallen off of it. The laser hit them, and they evaporated into fumes and gases, no longer solid enough for the blob to reassemble with. She probably would have smelled something foul if she'd been close enough when shooting the bits.
The blob grabbed Faraday and said something to him, it seemed. "Sustain, supercede, survive? What in the world are you talking about? You killed innocent people, you don't deserve to keep on going, however you keep on going!" Blizzard froze the "hand" that held Faraday, careful to not freeze him in the process, and the part of it that was connected to the "hand". Or at least she tried, as it seemed to be freezing slower now. "What in the..." she asked herself. This was odd. She wasn't feeling tired after using her powers. So it had to be the blob. "Trying to protect yourself against the freeze? Then have some more!" She increased her power to freeze the "hand" better, then continued to freeze it as best she could. It was still going slowly, but she wouldn't give up.
Marcus nearly had the wind knocked out of him as the blob swept him up and slammed him into the opposite wall. With a sickening whisper, he had his answer: "...Su...sta..in...Su...per..sede...Sur...vi...ve..."
The mote of anger growing his stomach exploded full force, sending a flash of red though his senses. "So that confirms it. You're nothing more than a rabid dog - victimizing the weak for your own gain." Marcus could feel its flesh shift under his skin, turning hard and pliable, like rubber. So, it thinks to shield itself? Seems it didn't pass its high school physics, whomever this... thing happened to be. Everything is a conductor, the only difference is how hot things get when you press the issue.
"And you know what we do with rabid dogs here in New York?" Marcus still had the potential he'd built up earlier. With the monster touching him, this voltage should be more than enough. With a deep breath, he readied to release it all in one burst...
"We PUT... THEM... DOWN!" With a flash of light, he released his stored potential into the monster, the smell of melting rubber filling his nose.
Morph was definitely sure that the answer given was not the answer wanted as the bloodhounds barked even louder this time. The ice woman blabbed on about 'innocents' which got a laugh out of Morph, the victims were far from innocent; muggers, murderers, paedophiles, rapists, you name it. Morph was certain that the stream of memory fragments it saw while it rested was not those of people who led 'innocent' lives. It came to be conclusion that these people just called people 'innocent' so they could save them, as superheroes only save the 'innocent' citizens that are dragged into this. The ice woman continued to sent a flurry of cold to the hand, fine let her, let her drain energy into this fruitless task, let her freeze her comrade in place, let her be hoisted by her own petard. Its cells would survive the ordeal thanks to the AFPs.
The barking was accompanied by a jolt more painful than the last. It refused to scream out, the last thing it wanted was its prey to see it as weak. Morph hadn't factored in dielectric breakdown and found the 'hand' and other parts of itself melting with the heat, both ice and the rubber-like flesh withering away under the heat. Some parts even shattered, revealing even more of the rubber, heated so much by the jolt it was almost liquid. but that was just like the discarded skin of a snake. Morph was sure that even more would replace it. Rubber oozed, trying to escaping the chitin, the proteins denatured and the heap of biomass rendered to just of a lump of flesh. Morph let the rubber pour through, encasing the man in goggles in something that looked between tar and rubber. Morph was sure to stop the electric man this time.
Lina had taken careful note of the situation, not one to be easily distracted by monstrous talk. She'd fought enough things running off the need to be better than everything and all of creation to be distracted by it's talk of surviving, and surpassing. Lina was too busy seeing that Blizzard wasn't nearly as effective as she was earlier, and that Marcus seemed to have a better time melting it than electrocuting it.
Great, it can change it's weaknesses. She thought. The best idea she had that came to her mind was to switch elements on her sword. Distancing it from her body a bit, Lina had to take the extra time to force the sword from arctic frigidness to scalding heat. The sword was bright with heat and glowed with the power of it. Turning the bladed end of her sword towards the preoccupied monster, she bent down a bit more and let out a cry of battle. "YeeaaAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" The furious warrior woman leaped towards it's side, cleaving the scalding hot sword though about half it's mid-section, but not bisecting it. She had noticed that the beast could feel pain as well, and if she couldn't much destroy it, maybe she could drive it to submission.
"Come on, just freeze, damnit..." Blizzard cursed as her freezing wasn't doing as much as she'd wanted, even with increased power. It probably didn't help that her team mates were using different elements as well, since her ice got melted thanks to the electricity from Faraday, and now Persephone was using heat against it. Heat slashes, but it was all the same.
She was about to get furious when she got an idea. Wait a minute. Heating it could actually benefit me. Maybe if we heat it enough, freezing it will work better, making it crack and harden. It wouldn't necessarily be frozen in ice, but it would still be hard enough to not reform after having parts of it broken off. "Keep at it, guys! New plan! Heat that sucker up so that I can freeze it better! Faraday, keep doing your thing with electricity! And Persephone, continue to slash at it with your heated sword! Just remember to switch to ice once we're done heating it up enough." This plan had to work, because she didn't want to spend any more time doing this than she had to. The sewer water stayed frozen as it was, since Blizzard had used a fairly low temperature to freeze it.
Marcus could feel the monster bristle as he let loose the charge, but whether or not it did any lasting damage didn't seem to matter, as it simply picked him up and tossed him to the ground. Dazed, he looked up to see the monster's appendage morph again, this time to excrete a thick, tarlike ooze.
Before he could react, it was upon him, pressing down on him like a ton of bricks. 'Shit! If I let this thing keep going, it'll bury me alive!' Looking to his HUD, it relayed he had chewed up most of his capacitance in that last attack - he was down to 22%. 'Fuck. FUCK. That's not much to work with, not at all. Unless...' His thoughts briefly turned to a metal cylinder in his overcoat pocket, gently thrumming, pulsing with electrical potential...
'NO. I can't use that thing here. I have no idea how it would react in an environment as damp as these sewers.' He turned what little of his body he could to face Blizzard, and summoned what little breath he was able, the ooxe starting to restrict his breathing. "Blizzard! Persephone! A little help before this thing buries me alive!?"
Name: Mark James Robinson and Talsper Rekuhai Hero Alias: None. Gender: Male, Male Age: 26, 634
Appearance: Mark is of Caucasian origins, standing at 5'8" tall. He is underweight for his age, and has green eyes and dark brown hair. He can usually be found wearing lightweight clothing: a plain T-shirt and shorts, plus a pair of sports shoes. When out on a run he will wear a fairly thin pair of athletics gloves. The only really distinguishing feature of Mark's appearance is that he wears a pure gold ring on the ring finger of his right hand. The ring is engraved with a single line of inscriptions in an alphabet not seen on Earth. It roughly translates to, "I am the Warden of Talsper Rekuhai, Mage of Eniadan".
When Talsper takes over, Mark changes noticeably. His eyes turn the same gold colour as Mark's ring, his posture drastically differs, and he speaks in a different voice. But for the occasional word, phrase or sentence that is native to Talsper's home plane, his speech could be considered Shakespearean.
Inside Mark's mind, he sees Talsper as a tall, white-haired man with a long beard, wearing full-length robes that seem to subtly change colour as Talsper speaks or moves. He wears the same ring that Mark wears in real life.
Personality: Mark is a very quiet individual, tending to keep to himself unless spoken to. Modest, gentle with his words and friendly to those who wish him no harm, he enjoys conversation as long as it's on a subject he likes and knows well. Otherwise, he doesn't say much, and if he doesn't want to talk, it'll show. If Mark wants to talk to someone, he goes to Talsper before anyone else: just because they share a body doesn't mean they know each other's thoughts. Some people might mistake him for a person who does a lot of thinking before doing an action: in reality, that's just him talking to Talsper before making a decision.
Talsper is considerably more talkative than Mark, eager to help with the problems others are having... and then realising that ordinarily he would be able to solve their problem with a snap of his fingers. Still, it doesn't stop him from trying. Sometimes Mark has to remind him that his actions can be seen as Mark's. Talsper is prone to acting theatrically both in combat and out of it.
Alignment: Superhero
Superpowers: Mark has one power to speak of. It took the better part of a year, but he learned a spell from Talsper which draws on the Aura surrounding the magician's ring. With it, Mark can conjure a smallish orb of fire, ice or lightning: Mark can choose which one he conjures. This orb, roughly a foot in diameter, hovers above Mark's hand and attacks targets that he points out, using the element of choice as a weapon. Mark can dispel and re-conjure the orb to use a different element, but it takes time to do so and is therefore impractical to rapidly change in mid-battle. The orb is dispelled when Mark switches places with Talsper as detailed below.
While not considered a superpower, Mark is also a traceur: he is fairly competent in the sport of parkour. He can navigate most obstacles with relative ease, as long as he can reach ledges, handholds or footholds.
The gold ring Mark wears is enchanted to contain a human mind and the superpowers that go with that person. A magical artifact from another plane of reality, the ring allows the person inside it to see what is happening at all times, and they can communicate with the person currently wearing the ring via telepathy. Talsper's mind and magical powers are contained within the ring. Mark and Talsper are both aware of each other's presence, and each can relinquish control of their shared body to the other. They do this by utilising Talsper's ring, which always contains one of the two minds.
In terms of powers, Talsper holds the better hand. When in control, he is capable of considerable feats of magical power by tapping into his connection to the Aura. Before his imprisonment, Talsper's spells were intended primarily to be used in battle against other mages. With Mark's help and suggestions, he has adapted the three that he now possesses to better suit Mark's world.
Talsper's spells are as follows:
Stronghold - He can produce a shielding dome of Aura energy that stops or hinders incoming ranged attacks, but in order to maintain the shield he has to be still and focused.
Aura Gust - Talsper throws streams of ethereal Aura from his hands, bypassing the armour or defenses of anyone caught in the streams. Aura Gust inflicts burns, frostbite or electric shocks depending on his choice.
Healer's Hands - Talsper lays his hands on the injured and channels the Aura into their body, repairing their wounds up to and including broken bones. Both Talsper and the subject of his healing must be uninterrupted for the spell to work.
When two minds are exchanging places, the ring produces a prominent gold aura that surrounds the hand of the wearer.
Weaknesses: Even with Talsper in control, Mark's body remains in the same human condition it always is. He's not indestructible while Talsper is in control. And despite being fairly strong, agile and tough due to his parkour training, he has no experience in real combat, hand-to-hand or otherwise.
Talsper's spell-casting is extremely limited compared to his original powers. Having one's mind trapped in a binding ring with only scraps of your natural talent left with you, and the ring cast out of its home plane, will do that to you. In addition, Talsper being able to use magic relies on him being in control of Mark's body. The exchange of control via the ring takes a while to properly complete, and can be interrupted. And if the ring is not on Mark's finger, Talsper and Mark cannot trade places at all: they will be trapped.
Talsper can be forced out of controlling Mark's body, most often by receiving grave injuries or sudden shocks. The spells worked into Talsper's ring can be overpowered by the aforementioned. Some of the duo's previous enemies have used this to their advantage.
Biography:
Mark Robinson lived a somewhat normal life for a New Yorker of his age. Born to a single mother, Janine, who received child support payments from his father - Janine never enjoyed talking about the man - the young Mark fared more or less okay in the earlier years of his education. As high school rolled around he found himself less and less interested in the subjects the teachers were blindly feeding him.
This disinterest in classroom studies led to him experimenting with more physical activities. He often saved up to try an introductory course in a martial art, dancing or gym training. It was in this way that at age seventeen, he discovered free-running and parkour. Mark's light but wiry build proved itself useful in the latter, and he began to practice whenever he could, vaulting ledges or jumping and rolling past flights of stairs.
Mark's interest in parkour earned him a lot of bruises, cuts, grazes and scrapes: in his earlier attempts at it he sprained an ankle and had to undergo treatment for the injury. By the time Mark was out of high school he had joined up with a small club at his local gym that focused on traceurs - parkour practitioners - and training to improve the skills of the members.
Mark elected not to attend college, feeling that his low grades and general lack of interest in high school would only hinder his efforts to study further. Instead he continued to train, aiming to make himself into a fitter, stronger and faster person. Out of the dozen or so people in the traceurs' club, he found himself spending time with the newcomers most often: he enjoyed coaching them, giving them instructions or hints and watching as they tried to imitate his actions.
The being known as Talsper Rekuhai is from another plane of reality, as is the ring Mark wears. Talsper comes from the plane of Eniadan, a world of magic where many seek to harness, understand and learn of the mystical forces at their command. Talsper was a great mage in his time, master of many schools of the arcane. In Eniadan, all magic is derived from the Aura, a natural force that pervades everything and everyone.
Enchantments, curses, hexes, primal power, charms... no spell eluded Talsper's grasp for the first five hundred years of his life as a magician. Until the fateful day when his reputation was ruined. His apprentice was murdered in the middle of the night, and evidence falsified to implicate Talsper in an assassination attempt on the life of the Chaliset Kinntara (Empress Kinntara). He was swiftly convicted of the crime despite proving his innocence, and the court sentenced him to banishment. Not just from his home city, though. From Eniadan itself.
Talsper was stripped of a good portion of his magical talent, demoted down to the rank of Noviat - the lowest of the low - and his mind was severed from his body and bound within a Ring of Containment. This ring, enchanted specifically to hold the mind and magical ability of a mage, was cast forth from Eniadan in a ritual only ever performed in time of need. Being torn from his body was one thing for Talsper... but his magic, too? It was inconceivable.
The magician could watch the ritual being performed, but was powerless to stop it. He felt himself being catapulted into the Void Between Worlds, where he saw only pinpricks of light. Gates to other planes. One in particular he found himself hurtling towards. The next thing he knew, the ring was crashing through Earth's atmosphere, straight into the water with a splash.
Talsper's ring washed up on the western shore of Long Island, where it lay unnoticed for a good month or so. Until Mark just happened to pick it up while out on an extended training run. Fascinated by the strange markings on the gold band, he investigated where it had come from and to whom it might have belonged. Lost property notices went unanswered, and jewellers wouldn't buy it from him. Each one said that the inscription rendered it unsellable.
So one day, Mark experimentally tried it on. Strangely it was a perfect fit... and then the ring began to glow and the traceur found himself in another place, another time. He stood before a tall, white-haired man who wore long robes: the colour changed whenever he glanced at it. The stranger introduced himself as one Talsper Rekuhai... he sounded like Mark should have heard of him. He hadn't.
In the ensuing conversation, Mark learned of the existence of other worlds. Planes of reality, Talsper called them. The old man came from a plane named Eniadan. Unfairly convicted of a crime he did not commit, his mind had been contained within the ring Mark now wore. Perhaps this was his sentence, to be exiled from his home and left stranded on another plane.
Talsper went on to explain the presence of magic on Eniadan. The Aura, as he called it, was everywhere, which allowed him and his people to perform their spells. It sounded a lot like a concept straight out of science fiction or fantasy to the initially disbelieving Mark, but there wasn't really any other way to explain how the man's mind was trapped within a simple gold ring, or how the magician was over six hundred years of age.
Over the next four years, Mark carefully introduced Talsper to Earth. It took careful guidance for him to understand human customs and general conventions that ordinary people took for granted. Electricity, the internal combustion engine, aircraft and many more besides were all alien to the extraplanar man. And in return, Talsper taught Mark the workings of his ring. The two learned to exchange places, to let Talsper take control of Mark's body, and they mastered telepathic communication with one another.
It took the better part of a year, and a sizeable amount of damage to an area of Central Park, but Talsper also taught Mark to use what he thought of as a simple spell. With Talsper's magical talent - limited as it was - and Mark's parkour skills, the two became a crime-fighting duo. Mark would chase down a pickpocket or mugger, let Talsper take over, and the mage would prevent the target's escape with his Aura Gust spell.
Notes: Due to the enchantments placed upon it, Talsper's ring is completely indestructible without dispelling the magic surrounding it. The ring is also enchanted to adjust its size depending on the wearer.
"Stop! Thief! Someone help!"
No sooner had the scream left the panicked woman than a man of twenty-six was bolting after the culprit. He gave a hurried order, "Call authorities," as he passed the victim. Mark Robinson dodged and weaved through the crowded streets of Manhattan, his quarry roughly shoving people aside in attempts to run from the scene. Moron. By doing so, he only made himself more of an obvious target.
The man in the black hoodie turned into an alley after a minute or so, skirting a large dumpster. Mark, however, sprang upwards, one gloved hand catching the edge, and twisted in mid-air to vault over it. Landing lightly, he continued his pursuit with almost no change in the distance between the hunter and the hunted. Lamp post at the corner. Out shot a hand to grab it, and Mark pushed off from the ground to swing around his temporary axis. He was gaining on the would-be thief, ever so slightly.
Now? a familiar voice prompted the familiar question in Mark's mind. Talsper was still guessing about the right time to make the exchange. Mark didn't blame him: guessing wasn't easy. His method of pursuing a target was, by nature, freeform and improvised.
Not yet. I'll let you know when you can take over, Mark answered silently, knowing his friend would hear him. Just remember to keep running.
Jump up. Catch the ledge. Over. Fall. Roll with the landing. Back on his feet in a heartbeat. A familiar sequence, performed countless times prior to today. It was far quicker than taking the stairs down as the thief had done.
[hr]
Two Minutes Later
Thief on the streets, grabbed something he shouldn't have, got caught, made a break for it. Broad daylight. Being pursued by... someone. She was unspecific. Find and detain the thief. Shouldn't be a problem. Those thoughts ran through the mind of the Seraphim agent known as Justicar as she took to the skies on her wings of white and teal.
She had taken the call, redirected from police to Seraphim, and assured the victim that the organisation would handle it. There was no need to call for backup: Justicar could handle a petty criminal on her own, with her considerable skill as a martial artist and her natural ability to chase down her foe. Flying was faster than running.
Kurt jumped from rooftop to rooftop as he tried to keep up with the flying drone. Although he was completely invisible, he kept a safe distance so he could calculate his route accordingly. The machine flew overhead at a constant speed, making very few course adjustments. Its path seemed to be a slower, more roundabout one, as opposed to a straight shot back to wherever it came from. A sound decision.
Suddenly, the drone took a sharp turn downwards into an alleyway while Kurt was in mid-leap. He was unable to change his course and ended up landing on the next rooftop and crashing to the ground. He cursed silently as he got back up and looked around for the drone. It seemed to have finally shaken him off.
"Shit..." Kurt mumbled as he looked down on the bustling street below him. Somewhere among the mass of humanity was their target, safely out of their reach. The drone was his only lead and that managed to escape. Not a good way for his first mission with Seraphim to end. He reached for his phone to contact Waldemar and Arlana, and stopped when he noticed something. One of the taxis driving by seemed a little...off. Kurt couldn't but his finger on it, but there was something peculiar about that vehicle. It was almost as if it was skipping frames...
'Just like the hologram outside the clinic...'
Kurt withdrew his phone. "Spectre here. I think I might have our man."
'Think is the operative word.'
He jumped from the rooftop, aiming himself towards the "taxi." Dropping his cloak, he focused energy to cushion his descent and landed somewhat roughly on a nearby vehicle. He immediately took aim at the suspicious car and fired a blast of ectoplasm toward it.
The flesh blistered as the woman with the sword sliced through it almost like a hot knife through butter. But that didn't matter, the man in goggles wasn't angry anymore, in fact he had the look of a rabbit staring off into the headlights of the car that would crush it. More words were said, but they didn't matter, Morph was retaking ground in the fight and the rush of adrenaline, despair, anger and hate gave it one hell of a rush. The man knew he was finished and Morph would make sure of it. He focused on crushing the man before his comrades could help him or before any last stands or desperation attacks could happen, letting a wave of ooze inch closer and closer to the man's face. Hastily thinking of Faraday's imminent defeat, Morph was joyfully that one more annoyance would be stopped. It regarded the man as below its creator, especially after the 'rabid dog' insult. Morph would show him, as a rabid dog only mindlessly attacks and Morph would take him down with thoughtful, albeit on the fly, strategies. Fire, frost or lightning, it didn't matter, Morph would endure and eradicate.
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