Partly Cloudy. Arc 1: Provenance.
Jasmin Lehtinen took a step back when she heard the growl of Wendigo's voice, a momentary feeling of trepidation passing through herself. Whether he was aware of it or not, Wendigo was pretty equiped in the intimidation department.
"This form is hard to talk in, so I'll be quick, I don't want to fight, innocent people out there. Hungry, so back off." She opened her mouth to comment, even as Wendigo began to turn away to shovel more sandwich materials into his skull, but another voice caused her to whip her head around and look towards a man and a young girl. "Hey, you. The one with lightning. The lad looks like he won't hurt anyone. Let the heroes deal with this. We don't want any violence or destruction. I would appreciate it if you cooperated. It would make things a lot easier on all of us."
Conflicting feelings passed through her, at that. On one hand, she agreed with the man. The heroes could deal with it. The PCRT might even be here, soon. She didn't want to fight. Hell, she was even pretty scared looking at the Changer behind the counter. She had no fighting experience whatsoever, and Wendigo looked to be pretty in control of his own power. However, at the same time, she enjoyed coming to this sandwich shop every other day, and now it would probably be closed for a week to restock. She also felt the urge to go against this man's definition of 'cooperation.' Who was he to tell her what to do? Maybe he was an undercover cop, waiting for backup. or maybe he was a pretentious asshole who wanted to exert authority in a moment of crisis. Maybe-
Ding!
For the second time in a two minutes, her train of thought was derailed as she whipped her head to find the source of a sound. A man, no, a PCRT officer? No, the uniform wasn't quite right. Either way, someone stood in the doorway rifle trained on the floor, wearing a trench coat, body armor, and a black helmet-mask hybrid with tinted lenses she couldn't see through. Then he spoke, his voice changed by his mask, and her heart skipped a beat as he motioned at her. Shit, he's an HLA member. "So I'm guessing you are the changer we got those calls about. Though going by the callers it sounded like this place was to be wrecked by the time I got here. Nope, just a couple bucks worth of veggie, meat and bread getting devoured. I would like to ask you all to please leave this fine establishment for a moment. So this gentleman and I can have a couple of words without me having to worry about what any third party might be doing." She nodded, relief flooding her. He didn't recognize her as the villain who'd robbed three convenience stores. I mean, who would? In a city filled with crime and heroes, three small not even noteworthy events wouldn't be remembered.
She exited the sandwich shop with the remaining patrons, and made her way down the street with her iron shavings mask still on and hood still up, well aware that someone could get her identity if she dropped it now. They were downtown, and many office buildings had parking garages across the street, so she made her way into one, and covered her tracks.
Gotta make an EMP. Disable cameras, anyone who might have been following me. She knew it was a paranoid thought, but you never know. She erected a large magnetic field around her, and ionized air, and soon electricity was crackling around her. She pushed outwards, and it dissipated. At the same time, every car in the parking lot did a final beep-beep , and their were a few honks, as circuitry fried and batteries drained. With that, she poured her iron shavings mask back into it's flask, took off and tied her hoodie around her waist, and walked home.
Ten minutes later, she was home in her studio appartment, kicking trash on the floor, and plopping down onto her futon with her phone in her hand, logging onto ParahumansOnline, a forum website maintained by hundreds of thousands of people, complete with it's own wiki of the amalgamation of public knowledge, and first-hand observations from citizens, information about almost every cape that has a cape-name. Jasmin even had a page, but the only information on her was that she had "lightning powers" with no elaboration, and that she's a villain that's committed three convenience store robberies. A few keyword searches later, and she discovered the information she was interested in. Freischütz was the HLA member who appeared at the scene. She was mildly interested, because Capetown's HLA branch consisted of two teams of ten members each, and out of the twenty, he was one of the ones with less media interest, but lots of "Cape Geek" interest. He was popular on the ParahumansOnline forums, and there was lots of discussion about his equipment and his powers. The other bit of information was a bit harder to find. Ghoul, a Changer last seen in New Mexico, seemed to be the best fit based on the description of the power. Swirling ink, ghoulish, skeletal preferred form, but can take the form of animals, or even just change a single part of the body. There wasn't any information on his crimes, and there was a single thread that mentioned him in three posts, as two users debated whether he was a Rogue or Villain, but other than that, no more online information.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... Brrrrrr. Brrrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... Brrrrrr. Brrrrrr.
As she searched, a high-pitched emergency-alert sound emitted from her phone, and she jumped in surprise at the sound. She expected it to be an Amber Alert, but her stomach dropped when she read the notification. State Of Texas Issued Abhorrent Emergency Alert System Broadcast Test. Right, it was a test. The last Abhorrent attack had been in India, four and a half months ago. The Abhorrents usually attacked three to four months apart, so the next attack was expected to happen any day, any hour, any minute. She had read articles online about how every time an Abhorrent attack is late, the HLA and the THA are basically on 24/7 stand-by, waiting for the attack, so they can go an defend, international or not. She herself had no plans to attend any Abhorrent fight, but it got her thinking.
If Capetown was attacked, would she help defend? It wasn't technically a law that parahumans had to defend, but that was for good reason. Firstly, it didn't make it look like the PCRT wanted villains on their side. Secondly, villains were more likely to help against Abhorrent attacks because it wasn't a law. They weren't being forced to. But it was a weird and shaky balance, because people expected you to. Fighting an Abhorrent is like fighting a tornado throwing around nukes, and if you have the power to stop it or let people die, you stop it, whether you're a villain or not. There's unspoken rules between capes. If an Abhorrent attacks, you put aside Hero, Villain, Rogue, lables, and you help. If you don't have the firepower to go toe to toe with one, you help recover and save the wounded capes, you help with the evacuation of civilians, you help relay information in battle. And you never, ever, use it as an opportunity to get revenge or learn an identity. It's been an honor code stronger than the strictest laws for over forty years now, and it's only ever been broken twice. Because when adults dress up and play cops and robbers, it's just a game. But when the Abhorrents attack, the facade ends, and things get serious.
The thoughts sat wrong in her stomach, and her shoulders felt cold as she caught herself staring blankly at the wall. She couldn't help but feel that the EAS broadcast test was a bad omen. Was Capetown a likely target? It's population was just over five hundred thousand, so it wasn't a particularly big city. But it keeps to it's namesake and has a dense cape population, ranking number five in the nation. Anything's possible. She thought grimly, before laying down on her futon and dark thoughts drifted her to sleep.