Legacy Issue #1
The Big Hit- Part 5
Back in Neo-Tokyo after receiving the information from the JEB, and watching CNN, and consulting the Intel of the Justice Elite, Malcolm decided that perhaps the team needed their resident shapeshifter, Identity. Luckily the elite had just return from Africa, and was put on an aerodyne right away for Barcelona. Identity arrived in country about five hours later, after arriving he was quickly ushered over to the hotel, arriving just as the rest of team was convening after taking a little break from all the action earlier in the day.
The current time was about 2200 local time, as they brought Identity up to speed on the recent events of the day. They were in the midst of the conversation when Roundhouse’s cell phone began to ring, he quickly reached down and answered it, “Uh hello, Roundhouse here.”
“So this number does work,” Synapse’s voice replied back smoothly, “seems like you went and made things complicated.”
“I don’t think so, you’re the one trying to kill people, remember,” Roundhouse retorted.
“You know he is against us, do you think it is going to stop when they pass that ridiculous act to enforce elite registration?” she replied back to him.
The rest of the team watched tensely as Roundhouse scowled, “That isn’t the point, we can’t speculate on that, and besides it isn’t my place to be judge, jury, and executioner.”
Order scowled, “I want to talk to her! Give me the phone.”
Roundhouse raised his hand for her to stop talking and waited for Synapse to reply. There was a slight pause before she spoke, “I guess you have made your choice, weak minded fool, I hope you enjoy working for your baseline masters.”
Roundhouse sighed and tossed the phone to Order who shouted into the phone, “Now listen here, you’re the one.. that is-“ the phone went dead before she could finish her tirade.
Order tossed the phone back to Roundhouse, “She is gone.”
Black Charger smirked, “How about we just use the Caller ID and call her back, would that work?”
Roundhouse nodded and called the number, getting the Coco-Bongo. He spoke to the bartender, but found little useful, besides the fact that the bartender sounded forced in his speech on the phone. That clenched it for the team, they moved into action; Identity was to pose as Granite, while the rest of the team was going to scout around the place and drag up any details and hopefully take out Pantheon, completely.
Identity arrived at the Coco-Bongo, in the form of Granite in his human form, having used the Justice Elite files to mimic the man’s posture, voice, and even DNA exactly. He bluffed his way past the doorman, using the age-old technique of money, and made his way into the anterior of the club. Outside Roundhouse stood in line, trying to see if anyone looked out of the ordinary. Luckily he spotted Phase rise out of the ground at the entrance to the Coco-Bongo and then sink back into the ground eerily. Roundhouse smiled, and sent a message to both Order and Black Charger, their quarry was near, and it was time to move.
Black Charger decided to move around to the back, and force his way in that way. After ripping the lock off, he stepped into the back kitchen and made his way towards the front, easily by-passing the cooks and servants in the back. As he walked he passed by a plasma screen monitor, where breaking news on CNN was being displayed. But Black Charger paid it no mind, and made his way towards the main area of the club.
Meanwhile Identity found himself a seat in the corner, and relaxed, so far so good, right? Just as he started to scan the room he felt the twinge of cold steel against the back of his skull, and a soft whisper in accented Spanish, “I am quite surprised to see you here, Granite.”
Identity replied in Granite’s voice, “You know me, I work fast.”
“Yeah, I guess you do,” she replied with an edge in her voice, “maybe a little too quick, how do I know I can trust you?”
Identity fumbled for some words, and then shifted his shape to look like Granite, in his alternate form, “Does this help?”
“I would have preferred to just shoot you in the back of the head, but I suppose, this will do for now,” Phase replied.
Identity relaxed, “So what is going on?”
Phase floated forward from the wall, causing a ruckus as the club started to form a ring around the two elites. She solidified for a moment and gave Identity a kiss on the cheek, “Thanks for coming, I trust you can find your own way out, bye,” she replied with a wink.
Identity blinked in confusion as he sat there, and then stood and made his way for the bathroom. Meanwhile Order continued to watch the Coco-Bongo for any signs of trouble when she received a call from Malcolm.
“What in the hell is going on over there!?” Malcolm shouted.
“What do you mean Malcolm?” she replied.
“Watch the news. Eduardo Valentino is dead, murdered in his home, where the hell are you guys?!” Malcolm replied.
“We are scouting out…” she trailed off, “we are on our way to find pout what happened to Valentino,” she replied.
“You better, this is not the kind of news I like to hear, call me, when you have something to share!” Malcolm replied.
Order called the rest of the team, it was time to regroup, and cut their losses. The team quickly reconvened back at the hotel, and realized they had been tricked. Pantheon used simple misdirection on them, so simple yet so effective. The team decided it was time to visit the Valentino estate, and see if they could drag up any clues about the murder. When they arrived the place was crawling with Barcelona cops, and even another team of elites, Strike Force 5, based out of Madrid. Their leader Cavalier, a Spanish super soldier introduced himself and the team to Justice Elite: Beta. The rest of Strike Force 5 consisted of Red Falcon, a bird-totem hero, Montana, a huge mountain of a man and a powerhouse, Black Ice, an ice elemental hero, and Matador a female speedster. Also present was a baseline detective, Inspector Vargas, a shady fellow, who seemed to rub just about everyone on the team wrong. The two teams passed pleasantries and then went about the dirty business of dragging up information about the murder.
Roundhouse was the first to find something useful, a single white strand, which they presumed belonged to Synapse. Order used her incredible senses to sniff out that Synapse was present though there was another scent, not connected to Valentino. A second unknown assailant. The team first interviewed the Head Butler, but found he had nothing useful to add, beyond the fact that he did not know what happened. They then moved on to the security guard on duty at the time of the murder. The security guard impressed by the presence of Justice Elite: Beta, allowed them to view the video footage of Valentino’s doorway. The wealthy Industrialist had no actual cameras in his chamber.
The footage seemed normal at first then it went to static for about a minute before it returned to normal. The security guard blinked, and ran the video once more only to blink again. The rest of the team simply watched and asked the guard if he had seen this before, at first he tried to lie, but then admitted he had fallen asleep for about thirty minutes on his shift. The team went through the rest of the interior camera video feeds, and found a disturbing pattern of the cameras going to static for up to a minute before returning to normal. This coupled with the fact there was no sign of visible entry made the whole murder smell of elite intervention. They were certain, Synapse was involved but the second party could be anyone’s guess. Roundhouse had an idea and decided to pay the Coco-Bongo one more visit, while the rest of the team dealt with finding out who the second unknown party was. Though before he left, Roundhouse did a nice job of picking the inspector’s pockets and coming up with his wallet.
Roundhouse returned to the Coco-Bongo and was all business this time. He walked right in, in his public persona and walked right up to the bartender. He was straight forward and direct, and after a few threats of the United Nations shutting his establishment down, the bartender admitted that Synapse had been by the club after Justice Elite: Beta left. She was with another man, a black male and they met up with Phase and left the place fairly quickly. Roundhouse was pleased and decided to take the video feed of Synapse’s arrival with him. On the video feed was also Phase, and unknown black male with blonde hair, he wore shades, that hid his eyes, though electricity seemed to arc down from his eyes, and across his body. He wore a long black leather trench coat, and steel toed boots.
The group had a face to go with the unknown assailant, and the video feed showed the stranger demonstrating his powers on the camera causing it to go dead. They had their second assassin, now to only put a name to the face. Roundhouse called up the team and passed along the fact that he had footage of the second assassin, which was passed on to Malcolm to try and find the name of the elite, and any applicable information. But the investigation was not over yet, following a hunch, the team did some searching about Inspector Vargas using his wallet, and respective identification to find out anything about him. They hit pay dirt, a blanket transfer of $10,000 US dollars had been made to his account in the last 24 hours. They had a suspect, and it was time to capitalize on their small victory.
Identity who had stayed behind at the estate, used his shapeshifting ability to trail Inspector Vargas, and find out just what he could be up to. At the same time Roundhouse was on his way over to the detective’s home to drop off the wallet, and maybe drag up just a little bit more information. After allowing the Inspector to get home, after finding out he lost his wallet the two heroes set to work. Roundhouse snuck around back, and was nearly inside the building when he got spotted by the inspector and ran around the house while the inspector ran outside with his gun, and searched the backyard. Identity on the other hand simply watched to see what was going on, but not making any move to help or hinder Roundhouse. Roundhouse picked the locks of the door, and crept inside the home. He evaded the small kids playing Justice Elite: Beta toys and made his ways upstairs to the bedroom. He dropped off the wallet and was about to leave when he saw a blinking voice message on the wall monitor. The inspector’s wife was sleeping and did not notice the stealthy elite as he played the message.
A computerized voice ushered out from the speakers in Spanish, “Excellent job, Inspector, the second half of the payment will be made shortly, once the operatives are out of the country. Your children’s lives will be spared, you have done well.”
“Pedro, turn that down, I am trying to sleep,” the inspector’s wife groaned, as Roundhouse copied the message and then quickly made his escape. It seemed that not everything was at it seemed. Though he still did not know what purpose the Inspector served in the whole plan.
Thankfully the day had come to an end, Roundhouse setup surveillance on the Inspector’s home, via a noisy neighbor, and then returned home, and shared what he had found. Identity remained behind, but finding nothing of value returned to the hotel, for a well-needed rest. By morning time, the news was all over the world, and reactions were mixed. It would take some time for the fallout to fully form, but things were about to get sticky in the political arena. Meanwhile the team decided to meat with the children of the Barcelona Gifted Elite Institute, and did their best to put their best face forward. They met with young elites and did their best to put a good face forward. The kids were impressed to be meeting Justice Elite: Beta, and for a short time, the team really felt like the heroes they were patterned to be.
During the meeting, the team befriended a young elite by the name of Tommy, a super-intelligent boy with limited cyber kinetic abilities, and an incredible hacker, capable of hacking into the JEB databases. Which he did with ease, for the enjoyment of Identity. That sparked an idea, and they had the young boy, run the images from the video feed of the unknown elite with Synapse through his system. In a matter of minutes, Tommy pulled up some information for the team. The elites was named Jobana Avasa, from Ethiopia, and his elite name was Power-Surge. He was a considered a delta class elite, and had powers of electricity, EMP, and cyber-kinesis. The elite was last seen in Italy prior to coming to Barcelona. The team finally had a name, and promised Tommy to get him a JEB uniform for the kid, making him an honorary member.
Since the convention center was still recovering from the damage done, the team returned back to Neo-Tokyo, only to find another mission waiting for them. Malcolm nodded grimly as they entered his office, “How do you feel about Hong-Kong?”
Roundhouse replied, “Seems like a good place to me.”
Black Charger nodded smoking a cigar, “I take it that is where we are going next?”
Malcolm replied tossing a dossier across his desk, “Keep your bags packed, you leave tonight for Hong Kong, our boy Power-Surge has turned up there, this time you will be working with the HK Dragons, they know you are on the way. I suggest you bone up on your Chinese…”
That concludes the first exciting Issue, join us next time for I love Wuxia... in the second exciting issue of Legacy.