There is a teenaged boy (or, well, a currently boy-shaped person) coming from the opposite direction, a wolf mask on his face, a thick brown jacket with fake fur lining that floofs up around his neck, and what might look like fake ears up until they twitch. He's half crouched, silhouette almost animalistic, as he tilts his head and apparently sniffs.

A wolf daemon pads at his side, tongue lolling out as she helps the search.

The boy glances up when Mach Seven turns his corner, half-straightens, posture a bit wary but not hostile.

- Well shit, okay.

Mach Seven looks up and whistles, audible through his mask, and Zepharthalin circles down and alights on an outstretched arm.  He turns his attention back to the - other superhero? if he's lucky - and waves with his other hand.

Uh, shit, what's his line here.  "Hey."

"Oh, hey," he says, relaxing a bit. "You - patrolling?"

"Yeah," he says.  How do superheroes talk to each other?  How did he not plan this far ahead?  Eh, whatever.  "You new?  I don't think I've seen you around."

"I. Ah. Just started."

"Yeah, same here."  He skates a bit closer, kicking off softly once or twice and gliding longer than it seems like he should be able to before stopping.  "Name's Mach Seven.  You?"

"Silver Wolf. Ah. I was tracking someone, I should probably get back to that - they smelled injured?"

"Oh, shit, yeah - my daemon can help look, if you want - "

Zeph snaps to attention.  "Can you tell what direction they're in?" he asks.

Frustrated: "No, I don't have a good sensory shape, but I think I'm moving faster than their scent - It doesn't smell fresh, I don't think there's an emergency, but I wanted to - gather clues, I suppose. The path's been going this way," and he gestures. The wolf's waiting a bit farther ahead, having been continuing along the scent-trail.

"I can follow from the air, swoop down if I see anything.  If you want some backup," he adds as an afterthought.

"Yeah. Backup would be really appreciated, thanks."

Zeph nods, takes to the air.

"Lead the way," Seven says.

He will, loping after his daemon with ground-eating strides. He's fast, not quite speedster but definitely above human, and as he picks up the trailing properly he shifts, legs malforming, hunching over, and moving entirely into an almost-lupine shape as he takes off.

Dried blood becomes visible, here and there.

And then the trail vanishes.

Silver Wolf stops, half-shifts back, and makes a frustrated sound, before circling around, trying to pick the trail up again.

"We smelled someone else. Whoever it was smelled like formaldehyde. Only right where that scent vanished," the wolf informs Mach Seven, as she focuses more on the area right where the scent led them. "Not coming or going or lingering in the air, and it's a still night."

"Hmm," Mach Seven says, a few paces back from the wolf.  "So, what do you think, teleporter?  Saw someone bleeding, zapped in and out to - either get them help or kidnap them?  Maybe they were a creepy serial killer and they wanted to embalm the body or something?"

"Or they were preserved with formaldehyde," Zeph says.  "And they have a power such that that makes sense."

"Neither of us can sense powers. Teleporter makes the most sense, though, and - the smell of formaldehyde was strong, but I can't tell if it's 'works with' strong or 'is made of' strong." She half-growls. "Damn it. And I bet no one saw anything. We'll memorize this scent, though, keep our noses sharp."

Mach Seven nods.  "I'll keep an ear out for teleporters, or rumors of teleporters."  He frowns under his helmet.  " - Where do you get formaldehyde?  Would whoever it was just have ordered it online, or...?"

Silver Wolf lopes back in time to hear that. He and his daemon both frown and exchange a glance. "I don't know. Codex might? She's my friend, has been doing the non-this-stuff type. Stuff. She also might know who's operating where?"

"Worth a shot.  Want us to come meet her, or is she a silent partner?"

"She prefers meeting people? I think." And Silver is somewhat uncomfortable not warning people about her daemon's truth-telling power, but Codex had insisted it's a secret, so.

"I'm up for meeting her.  Got no plans other than this patrol, and honestly I don't think patrolling accomplishes very much if you don't have super-senses."

"I don't think we'll find anything else, here, yeah, the trail's completely dropped. You alright following me?"

"Sure thing," Mach Seven says, and Zeph nods.

He shifts into a better running form and lopes off rather easily, leading the way to an area abutting one of the many - not quite parks, but more areas of wood that humans failed to kill. He shifts down into human form while out of anyone's sight except Mach Seven and their daemons, then almost casually strolls up to the apartment complex, and to a door on the basement floor, knocking.

A daemon answers it. He appears to be separated from his human, or else she's invisible, because she's not in sight.

"You guys back? Who's this?" he asks, looking at Mach Seven.

"Name's Mach Seven," he says.  "Met your partner Silver Wolf on patrol, he offered to introduce us."

"You a hero, then?"

"Uh, aspirationally, I guess."

"Checks out," the lynx informs Silver Wolf, then pads over to a piece of furniture that can't seem to decide if it's a couch or a folded-in-half mattress and jumps up, before curling in on himself to watch the group with suspicious eyes.

"Well, that's good," Silver Wolf says cheerily, and turns to Mach Seven. "Uh. Want something to drink or something?"

A vaguely late-teens-ish girl uses that moment to appear in the doorway, hair concealed by a loose hoodie, simple mask affixed to her face. 

"Soda'd be good."  He frowns bemusedly.  "What was that about?"

While Silver fetches soda, Codex comes in, says, "Ilmari does lies and is paranoid, he insists on checking people at least vaguely."

"I," says the daemon, "Am reasonable. You would invite a villain in if he had a new language."

"Duh," is Codex's reply. "Especially a rare one, languages don't grow on trees." (Does Mach Seven know any neat ones?)

(Mach Seven knows only English.)

He laughs.  "You must be Codex?  Ilmari doesn't know my secret identity now, does he?"

(He has a secret identity!  Eee!)

"Oh, no, code names are the right kind of true," she says, leaning against a wall. "So you ran into Silver? What happened?"

"I was patrolling, Silver was following the scent of someone he thought had been injured, we crossed paths.  He didn't find anyone, but the place where we lost the scent there was another one, Silver said they smelled like formaldehyde.  Both trails just kinda vanished, like they'd teleported away."

"Huh. Formaldehyde isn't exactly sold on the street, but it's easy enough to get unfortunately... That does imply a narrow search pool, though, someone who works with it regularly or whose power relates to it... I'll want to take or send Ilmari when we start asking questions, someone trying to lie to him might be the fastest way to solve this but the power's still on the fritz..."

"On the fritz?"

"Has - weird conditions for working. Which mostly keep me from munchkining objective truth."

"Ah, gotcha.  Not sure I'd be too much help in this phase, unless you want some extra muscle when you go interrogating people."

"If you're local you could probably help a lot, we haven't been around the area long - in masks or out."

"I'm local, but I haven't been - this-ing, very long, if that's what you meant."

"Should still be enough to help. And backup muscle doesn't hurt, truth is useless in most fights."

"Sounds like a plan.  When do you wanna head out?"

"While I'd normally like some time to look things up, it's probably best to do any questioning while the trail's relatively fresh?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Silver! Come on, we're heading out - "

The lynx hauls himself up off the couch.

"Coming!" he calls, and emerges with drinks for the road.

Zeph flaps onto Seven's shoulder, and they follow Codex out.

Silver leads Codex over to the origin, and - well, there's bound to be someone nearby. He'll start sniffing, but -

"I'm not very good at people, and I look sort of alarming sometimes I think? Once I find someone you guys might want to handle approaching."

"Sure," says Seven.  "Figured Codex or Ilmari would be taking point, if anyone.  I've never, like, interrogated anyone before, and I don't have any powers that'd help."

"Well, hopefully Codex won't offend anyone too much," he says, before setting out to Find People.

There are indeed a few people findable, many of whom honestly saw nothing, but more than a few of whom lie or deflect, and very few of whom manage to refuse to answer in a way that doesn't trigger Ilmari's power.

(He's indeed taking point on talking, mostly to people's daemons because he's at least academically aware of manners, and he even restrains himself from opining the truth out loud.)

They make a pretty thorough sweep, and then Ilmari says quietly, "Let's talk in the apartment."

Zeph nods.

Back, and Ilmari paces a bit to get his truths in order, then:

"Most of them only saw the person passing. Got a description. Adult, white, male, black haired, late fifties, approximately five feet two inches, looked vaguely working class, defaulted to English when stressed - Southern accent, nobody lying to me recognized him at all. Appeared to have several shallowly bleeding stab wounds, and a lot more blood than most humans hold. Daemon was either separated or small, no one saw it enough to lie about. No one saw him vanish, or who took him."

"Hmm," Seven says.  "So the kidnapee may themselves have superpowers - something to do with blood..."

"Weird regeneration, maybe," Zeph suggests.

"Maybe," Seven says.  "But that's still not a lot to go on.  I don't think there are any big-name superheroes in this area, and that guy doesn't sound like anybody I can think of."

"Us either. If someone knows but is inclined to lie we might get it, but - I don't know where to start finding someone like that without just running through and asking everyone, and that gets suspicious."

"Hmm.  Well, there's three of us, with two identities each - maybe everyone can do a bit of fishing, staggered by time and place, and get six times the work done before anyone gets suspicious of us than if we all asked questions together.  ...I don't know if that actually makes sense or not.  What do you guys think?"

"I think that would work, yeah."

"Uh, I'm bad at people, but my girl-shape and boy-shape don't look much like each other, and I can do other human shapes, they're just usually not comfortable, so I can count for more. And Ilmari can pretend to be my daemon and do the talking for me, I guess. But questions might still raise alarms? Even if different people are asking."

"Honestly, that might just be a risk we run superheroing at all.  If we don't have any other leads..."

"It definitely is a risk. Especially without powers that lend themselves well to hiding..." Pause, and: "I think this is important enough to risk it."

Zeph pipes up: "We could pretend to be doing a survey, or something, while we're gathering information on supers in the area.  Tell us about superpowered friends or acquaintances you've had, super-person activity in the area you've heard rumors of.  But unless we wanna mock up a really serious, in-depth cover story, we'll wind up drawing attention.  And Codex is right - something fishy is going on, and I'm not wild about passing the buck to a bunch of mundane cops, to deal with someone with unknown powers, or several such someones.  We're taking risks sooner or later anyway.  If it's a vote, I vote yes."

Seven scritches his daemon's head.  "Seconded."

"Okay, so, Ilmari refuses to lie, but I can make a story about a school report, he can refrain from correcting us."

"...As long as it's pretty simple I can maybe maintain that sort of lie?"

"Well, if you don't want to use that you don't have to.  If we split up, Seven and I can and you can do something else, just ask and be vague.  My hope is that it doesn't get to the point of anyone trying to call us on it at all."

"I'm fine with it, I just have trouble lying convincingly."

"I'll make you a script, how about."

Seven laughs.  "We're free all day if I'm not gonna bother patrolling.  I can duck out and change back into my secret identity and start wandering around asking people stuff now."  (He's pretty much gonna take any opportunity he can to refer to his secret identity.  He is a superhero!!!)

"It'll probably be a good idea to go one at a time, so whoever's questioning people can have Ilmari tagging along to catch lies."

"Makes sense.  Who's first?"

"Since you're free now, might be good for you to go first - I actually have something I'm working on anyways - then that way we won't end up cutting into your schedule later?"

“Sounds good to me!”

Zeph puts in: “I wouldn’t say no to Ilmari coming along, but Seven and I can’t keep up enough distance to convincingly pretend I’m not his daemon, I don’t think.”

"Well, I can put off my thing, then. Going in groups shouldn't hurt, anyways..."

"Eh, there's probably ways we can make it work.  He couldn't hover out of sight but you could get on the other side of a door, around a corner in a shadowy alleyway.  In a dumpster if you needed to."

Zeph turns up his beak and chirps haughtily at the mention of hiding in dumpsters.

"Oh, hush, this is the sort of thing we both signed up for."

"I suppose," Zeph says affectionately.

"I still think going solo would draw less attention.  Send Ilmari along if you're still up for it, Zeph can make himself scarce."  Scritch scritch.

"Alright. Solo's fine, too."

“Guess I’m off, then.”  He stands.  “If Ilmari is tagging along I’m gonna stay in costume at least at first.”  He turns toward Ilmari.  “You ready?”

"Sure."

They depart.

"Gonna start by heading back to the scene of the crime and asking around to see if anyone saw anything," Seven says.  "Sound good to you guys?"  (Holy fuck is it weird to talk to someone else's daemon when their person isn't around and you're pretending they're your daemon.)

"I perceive no problem with that."

So Mach Seven returns to the site of the (murder? kidnapping? disappearance?), heads into the nearest apartment building, and, with Zeph lurking out of sight of the doorframe, starts knocking on doors.

Most people are thoroughly not interested, but there is one person who answers - an old lady, scowl fixed firmly on her face, squirrel daemon perched on her shoulder. "What you on about, boy?" she demands.

By now, he's pretty sure he's figured out a pose to strike that looks confident and a shade superheroic without actually looking like he's striking a pose.  Gotta look the part if people are gonna take you seriously.  "Ma'am, my name's Mach Seven.  I'm looking into reports of a strange event that might have occurred near here some time in the past few days."  (sound confident, sound official)  "It probably involved at least one superpowered individual."  (sounds better than superpowered person probably)  "Did you see or hear anything strange outside your building recently?  A fight, or perhaps one or two people on the street seeming to vanish?"

"Always strange things, these parts. None of you heroes ever seem to worry about us. Some bigwig got himself nabbed, huh?" she asks, voice scathing.

Audibly sighing at her would be a bad idea, probably.  "The person who was kidnapped might not have been superpowered themselves.  They could've been one of your neighbors.  I don't want to alarm you, but I need to track this guy down in order to protect you."

"Don't know of no one missing."

"All right, if you're sure.  You say a lot of strange things happen around here?"

"Powered sorts coming and going, teenagers doing things they shouldn't. None of my business."

"Well, if you see anything that you think might be a superhero's business, I have a work phone - "  He gives her the number of the burner phone he bought before his first patrol.  "It's not an emergency number, I'm not gonna be on call day and night or anything.  But if you see anything suspicious and want a super-person to be paying attention to it, feel free to give me a call."

She'll accept the phone number with a squint, then say, "I suppose I can keep it around."

"Be safe," says Mach Seven.

After he closes the door he turns to Zepharthalin, where he's hiding out of sight, and says, "Okay, you can stop glowering at me now."

"You wanted to snap at her," Zepharthalin says primly.

"She lied, a few times. She knows of several people missing. Mostly those less likely to be missed - the homeless, the socially disadvantaged, the mentally ill. She's more interested in the strange happenings than 'none of my business' indicates, but I couldn't get more since she technically listed some true things."

"Hmm.  If it's just that she likes rubbernecking, maybe one of us could try getting chummy in a civilian identity, but it'd backfire if she's into something sketchier."

"And she doesn't seem easily chummed.  ...By knows of, do you just mean she's seen people around and then conspicuously stopped seeing them around?"

"Not enough information. Currently my power mostly gets 'what someone would say, if they were inclined to be truthful.' She was not the sharing type."

"For my part, my gut tells me she's just gawking, but we probably won't get much else out of her either way.  Meanwhile - if several people have disappeared recently, then more people might disappear in the near future, and that, I believe, spells stakeout."

"Uh, I'd like to register that I'd be garbage at stakeouting.  Staking out.  Zeph'd probably be okay, but if one of you guys would do better...?"

"I and Codex are patient, though do not have advantages should combat occur. Silver can be surprisingly still when motivated, and is likely our best option, given his daemon's variable power set. Codex and I will remain as essentially mission control. You are welcome to remain with us."

"Hmm.  I think it may be best for us to be on-site, on call to help with a fight, but not be relied upon to spot anyone.  Seven and I would be more useful in a fight than behind the scenes, but I don't think he'd like to be relied on to sit perfectly still for five hours and then spot somebody through binoculars, for example."

"Reasonable."

Back to Codex and Silver?

Back indeed.

Silver Wolf doesn't have a problem with staking out. He shifts his form, some, into a more sleek, feline shape, his eyes flashing in the dark and his limbs more lithe.

"Helps with night vision. And being still. Big cats are decent ambush predators, and I haven't figured out most of the better ones, yet, since they're usually not mammals," he explains.

"Yeah, you're gonna be a lot better at this than me," Mach Seven says.  "I'll do a few patrol runs nearby in areas you're not watching, hopefully if whoever it is manages to avoid me you'll be able to spot them.  I got us some walkie talkies, too - "  He produces the pair from his belt.  "Kinda cheap kids-toy stuff but it's all I could get on short notice.  We should test 'em out probably."

"That'll help, yeah. Thanks."

Once they're apart: "Testing, testing, these things suck I bet - "

"You're mostly understandable," Silver says. "So, they're okay."

"Yep, you're coming through pretty clear too.  Let's get this started."

Mach Seven takes up a patrol, Zepharthalin flying ahead of him from lamppost to lamppost.

And Silver settles in to wait.

After a while, when it's gotten cold and feels increasingly pointless -

There's a fox daemon, briefly, little more than a glimpse, in the corner of Zeph's eye.

He alights on his human's shoulder.  "Caught a glimpse of a fox daemon thataway - "

Seven changes direction as Zepharthalin takes off again, and relays the news to Silver Wolf over the walkie-talkie.

"I just spotted a person, too," Silver says. "Keeping eyes on them."

"Anyone around they could be targeting?"

"Maybe? My daemon smells someone, we don't have visuals, though."

"I'll keep an eye out best I can."  He keeps moving; any sign of the fox?

Yes, sitting on the roof of a building over there, watching them while flicking her tail to and fro. 

Well, if she's not going to bolt or attack or alert her human to do the same, Zeph will approach.

She grins, curls her tail around her legs. "What are you doing out so late?" she asks. "You don't strike me as the nocturnal type."

"Running errands," Zeph says implacably.  "Yourself?"

"Spot of insomnia," she says agreeably. "We're more night foxes than anything."

"Seen any suspicious activity in this area recently?"

"Suspicious? How so? That sounds quite alarming," she trills.

Let's see how good this fox's poker face is.

"There have been some kidnappings over the past few days."

"Really? I hadn't heard. Do you know who?"

That's definitely a pretty thorough poker face.

"We have a list of suspects."  Not a terribly long one.  "Perhaps you'd like us to walk you and your human home, in case whoever it is jumps out from behind a trash can?  We can be dangerous if we need to be."

Seven grits his teeth and digs his fingers into his palms and, in the hope that he'll be able to whisper into the walkie-talkie without the fox hearing him, pulls away as far from Zepharthalin as he can bear, and says, "You might wanna get ready to pounce soon."

"Oh, I'm quite sure we'll be okay," she says, grinning. "Our power's no slouch, either, and my human's already home. Still, thank you for the offer. Quite gentlemanly of you."

"Oh, it's no trouble."  Fox daemon doesn't know he and Seven are working off the information that the kidnapper can probably teleport, so if this is the teleporter's daemon maybe he can get her to let it slip -

"Can I ask what your power is?  My human is supernaturally fast and strong, and I can heal him."  Basically true, as bait and/or a gesture of good faith, but vague enough to leave out a few key details.

"Oh, why should a magician reveal her tricks?" she drawls. "It would spoil all the fun."

Fox says her human's at home, but a daemonless person and a personless daemon lurking around the same place is otherwise suggestive.  And she's got a good poker face, but she's overacting.

"Well, it would've been a way to foster trust between strangers, before I said as much."  He tries to make his voice playful but he's not sure how well he sticks it.  Stall, stall, until Silver Wolf sees something incriminating, but Zeph's pretty sure this is the kidnapper's daemon, or the daemon of someone working with them.

She flicks her tail then her ears, says, "While I've enjoyed talking, it is getting awfully late. I should probably make sure my human sleeps at some point."

"Sure you don't want a watchbird?  Two supers are better than one, if the kidnapper does show his face."

"It's appreciated, but I'm sure."

Yeah okay fuck this, fox is getting followed whether she likes it or not.  "Have a good night, then."

"Good night."

And she'll stroll off, hopping through the twists and turns of the buildings.

Zeph takes to the air after a moment, following the fox through the alleyways, and Seven skates after.

She twists out of his sight for a moment - 

And isn't there when he catches up. Nor is she on the next street over.

Oh, they're looking for a teleporter, he's an idiot.

"Silver is your human still there, I think their daemon teleported away - "

"He's wandering through a twenty-four hour store. I'm not sure we have the right guy, here..."

"Dammit.  The fox was acting sketchy, but your guy could be unrelated, little sparrow in his pocket or something.  Zeph'll recognize her if we run into her again, I think, but."

"Right. I'll look around some, maybe."

"I'll keep up a patrol on the ground."

"Roger that."

And he'll start doing sweeps again.

Mach Seven returns to his patrol route, away from the area Silver Wolf is staking out.

Anything else interesting that night?

Not particularly so.

Then he'll regroup with Silver Wolf and Codex as the sun rises.  (The next twelve hours is gonna suck.)

Codex is yawning and grouchy and not particularly happy with how peppy Silver Wolf still is.

Still. "What all happened?" she asks.

"Ran into a sketchy fox daemon who I'm pretty sure was a teleporter, but she got away.  Silver may have seen her human but it might've been some rando, we're not sure."

"Hrm. There's the problem that if the fox was our kidnapper's then they know what we look like and that we're in the area now. First is probably bad, second's probably mixed."

"They know what Zeph looks like, at least.  And she was sketchy enough that I'm pretty sure she's involved somehow even if she's not the kidnapper, and we can also recognize her - but yeah it's not great."

Nod. "Unfortunately Ilmari can't work off relayed words..."

"Think we should try to capture her for interrogation if we run across her again?  - that sketches me out a bit more than just intervening in, like, ongoing crimes."

"Of course not. But it might make sense for Ilmari to be on some patrols... Or at least nearby."

He nods.  "That sounds like a better way to do it."

She sighs. "Ugh. Well, you guys can maybe sleep today, I'll just try to normally ask around. I can pretend to be a school journalist pretty easily."

"I shouldn't actually sleep eight hours while the sun's out, I'll be nocturnal for weeks.  But I'll take a power nap, yeah.  - Can Ilmari work off recordings?"

Zeph chimes in: "Or live transmissions?"

"In some use cases but not straightforwardly - I could do a video conference where I am on one end or a recording meant for me or Codex, but not 'you secretly record someone talking to you'. I can as of recently get on-and-off results on politicians giving speeches."

" - Stop me if I don't seem likely to think of anything you haven't," Zeph says, "but what if Mach Seven were to say I'm recording this conversation so someone I'm working with can look over it, whether or not you say what you're working with them on exactly - does it change if you're up front about the fact that you're a lie detector - "

"If I tell them I'm a lie detector they usually try various creative and ultimately failed ways to deceive me. My power triggers at attempts to deceive me or my human directly. Live recordings usually work, if the person knows I am there to be deceived. Recordings where they are talking to you but know I will eventually listen sometimes work, but do not deliver false information. Attempts to deceive 'anyone listening' are unreliable. They do not have to know I in particular am listening, but if they know me my power is more reliable."

Zeph nods.  "Probably just easier to have you along, then, we can try tricks like that if there's some reason it's better for you to be elsewhere.  But your human is right, we should sneak in a few hours of sleep soon."

"I can call you guys if something comes up as an emergency?"

He snaps his fingers into a fingergun and says, "Yep.  But now I'm heading out before I keel over.  See you."

"See you around." And she'll go to take a catnap herself.

(Silver is somehow still wide awake. Why do energetic people exist.)

Mach Seven departs, sleeps a few hours, spends a day as Tobias Flynn working in retail hell, and regroups with his new superhero partners the day after that.

Codex is there, yawning.

And a girl in Silver Wolf's costume, leaning against Silver's daemon.

Mach Seven is only utterly baffled for about half a second, before he remembers Silver Wolf saying something about "boy and girl shapes" the other day, when they were planning interrogations.

"Hey guys.  - Sorry if this is a stupid question, but you're Silver Wolf, right?"

"Yeah! I change human shape sometimes, too, sorry," she says, waving.

"Hey, no worries."  Fingergun.  "Did I miss anything interesting?"

"All's quiet on the western front. So far at least."

He nods.  "Who's turn is it to do interrogations?"

"Ilmari and I probably should, to be honest, at least this early."

"Sounds good to me."

"You want to play backup for us?"

"Sure thing.  Heading out soon?"

"That's probably best, yeah, though I completely wouldn't object to more thorough planning. What do we do in emergencies? What're our communication protocols if we're being observed?"

"Hmm.  Gonna be scouting in costume, yeah?  So there's no need to seem too innocuous, people will know something serious is going on as soon as they see a couple of costumed supers around.  We don't have to do the fake school project thing.  ...Might be best to just stick together, anyway, if trouble breaks out near you guys your powers might not do you much good.  Zeph and I can try to cover your escape, or stick by you, whichever you prefer."

"That does make sense, yeah."

He nods.  "Were you thinking, another stakeout, or running a patrol route, or interviews again...?"

"Hm. I'm thinking still stakeout."

"Sounds fun.  Well, no, it sounds terrible, but you know what I mean."

"Hah. Yeah, I do."

With plans and preparation in place, the stakeout proceeds.

Boring boring boring, there's not much activity here. Some teenagers being irresponsible, but what else is new.

Stakeouts are the woooorst but they'd probably be more the worst if he was the one trying to catch someone instead of just standing guard, so he tries not to complain too much, at least to whoever's turn it is to do the actual staking out, on or immediately after the day of their turn.

Days pass without anything that calls for superheroic intervention.

And then something maybe does.

There's a shout, and a dull 'thwack' and a 'whoosh.'

Zeph chirps, concerned.  Mach Seven turns toward Codex.  "Did you see - "

"I heard something. Come on, let's go."

She heads out, and curses not having Silver Wolf with them this time.

He follows.

Zeph can take to the air, get far enough up that he might be able to catch something before the others do.

There's a woman, fighting apparently solid shadows with telekinetically controlled pieces of piping and machinery from a nearby construction yard, a cut on her forehead, her teeth bared and eyes wide. She doesn't seem very practiced, and the shadows move in concert.

Zeph regroups, reports, alights on Mach Seven's shoulder.  "Can't see who's casting the shadows - not sure which if either is working with the kidnapper but we can try to break it up at least - "

At close range, he'll have both his own speed and strength, and Zeph's regeneration.  He pauses, briefly, for Codex's cue, then shoots toward the fight.

She's not much use here, so instead she's hanging back, trying to update Silver Wolf.

Ilmari hunkers down, eyes narrowed at the shadows, short tail lashing.

He skids to a stop in sight of the telekinete, calls out, "Whoever's casting the shadows, come out where I can see you!"

Hahah nope.

The telekinetic lashes out at another shadow, finally scoring a solid blow - only for it to flow around her attack. She narrows her eyes.

Yeah okay sounds about right.  Zeph takes off from Seven's shoulder, tries to rake one of the shadows with his claws in midair -

It flows away from the outstretches claws, lashing up at him, just barely slow enough to dodge.

He swoops back, takes to the air to see if he can catch a glimpse of another human or daemon.

Not immediately obvious, though there's a few places the shadows aren't behaving the way they exactly should.

He lands on Seven's shoulder as Seven valiantly tries to kick the shadows in the face.  "Couple places the shadowcaster might be hiding out - "

To the telekinetic: "Can you hold your own while I look for this creep?"

"Sure thing," the telekinetic says.

Right before Silver finally gets into contact over the radio - "I'm approaching, what's the situation?"

"Telekinetic in the open, she's fighting someone with shadow powers who's hiding somewhere, I'm trying to track him down - can't see him but Zeph spotted a few hiding spots - make sure the telekinetic has backup?"

"I can do that, though I'm not sure which of us leans better at tracking - " she says, switching to a faster form.

"I'll do a circuit of the area and if I haven't turned him up and there's still trouble we can regroup and switch," Seven suggests, speaking rapidly.

"Roger that."

She leaps over the last rooftop, lashing out at a shadow. The telekinetic adjusts around her.

Anything weird in the weird shadow spots, other than weird shadows?

Not if he tries running through them.

Well fuck.  Regroup -

"Hey Silver no dice can you sniff him out?"

Shifting into a tracking form: "I'll try, I'm not doing much good here anyways."

He folds himself back into the fight.

Do the shadows respond to getting hit faster and harder?  Because he can do faster and harder.

They flow away from his attacks more, and turn into inky mist when he lands a strike. 

Fucksake.  To the telekinetic: "Did you try to run, did they chase you - "

"Tried, they chased me a bit but I didn't go far, I'm not fast," she says. "Bad knee."

"We've got a car, I can try to cover you while you get away."

Her eyes dart around. "Don't know. Might work? You got someone to drive?"

"Yep."

"Codex, we're gonna try to get her out of here, bring the car around?"

"Roger that. Already at it, be there in a few."

"Copy," and, "she's on her way."  He'll be fast, he'll interpose himself between the shadows and the telekinetic as much as he can.

She gets there pretty quickly, tires squealing a bit as she brakes suddenly.

"Silver, we're getting out of here, regroup?"

"Right, coming."

They pile into the car, Seven last in line.

The shadows don't chase them as they drive off.

Seven flips the bird at the shadows as they drive away.

He turns to the telekinetic.  "Any idea what that was about?"

She shakes her head. "No clue."

"You sure?"  He sighs.  "Anywhere you want to be dropped off?"

"Uh. Yeah. My apartment? But I'm not sure they won't come back..."

"You guys up for keeping watch the rest of the night?" he asks.  "We probably can't do it regularly, but I'll give you our emergency number, if you're worried you're still in danger."

"That'd be nice..." the woman says, voice a bit quiet.

"I'm good with it," Silver says.

"Can't promise I'll be alert, but I can make do."

"Should probably be Silver and me doing the actual lookout stuff if there's no one to interrogate, anyway."

"Yeah. Might be smart for me to nap while you guys start, then if one of you flags I can take over?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Back seats lay flat, so I'll be good." The streets are nearly deserted this time of night, so while there's stoplights in their way, she's able to make it to the apartment soon enough.

Seven will likely flag first, assuming no one shows up before then.

Not while he's on watch.

Silver's still going strong, but Codex got some sleep, so she'll take over.

Zzz.

Fortunately nothing else happens in the night, nor after the woman asks them to escort her to her workplace (she doesn't feel she'll need any help afterwards) and Silver doesn't need to be anywhere the next day, so can thoroughly crash once they're home.

"Thanks for the help," Codex says to Mach Seven once everyone's settled.

"No problem," he says, sprawled over a couch.

"Sorry my power's not the best for all - " She waves a hand. "This mess. But at least we did something..."

"No worries.  Gotta have a getaway driver, right?"  He frowns pensively.  "Out of curiosity what exactly is your power?  I'm unclear."

"I learn the languages of anyone I'm close enough to, distance wise. It's a bit buggy at times, talking to someone helps. Ilmari - if someone lies to him, he'll know, and sometimes he'll get the truth. I think it's trending to more generalized 'knowing things.' But maybe more generalized communication, it's - a very weird and unspecific power. Good for utility, though."

“Ah, gotcha.  Ilmari I knew, but I was confused about you.  And Silver Wolf does, like, animal themed shapeshifting, right?”

"Pretty much? They get some weak secondary powers with each shape - like, better running and senses as a wolf - but they're not as good as a lot of people's main power. Versatility over power."

"So can you do any animal, or do you have, like, a suite of options?" he says to Silver Wolf.

"There's some I'm better at and get - more? Out of, and some I can technically appear as but don't get anything noticeable out of. I don't know if that's practice or the power progressing, though."

He nods.  "I'm pretty much a tank.  I usually say super-strength and speed and durability and stuff, but the way it actually works is, I can telekinetically control my own body a little, and Zeph has regeneration, and then when we're close enough we both have both powers.  So with him on my shoulder I basically look like a tough speedster who can punch really hard."

"We're a good team."

He mimes a toast.  "Gets the job done."

She laughs. "We need to practice together more! Me'n Codex are good with each other, but it's nice to get a sense of powers!"

"Plus it sounds like a fun time."

"Definitely."

"I'm free next weekend...?"

"I am too! Codex?"

"I can get my stuff done around that, yeah."

"Awesome.  Uh, I should probably get going soon though."

"Heh. Yeah. Want a lift somewhere?"

"Nah, I'll make my own way.  Thanks though."

"Alright. See you later, then?"

"See ya."

And he heads out.

Silver's the most excited about training when the time rolls around. She's in a more combat-ready form - feline, sleek silver fur with black rosettes. More animalistic than her half-transformed wolf state, but not by much.

"Nice look," Seven says.  "So, how hard do you want me to hit you?"

"You mean try to hit me."

" - More seriously, try not to break bones? They're inconvenient, and I'm not much more durable than a baseline like this. Can take falls better, though, so feel free to throw me everywhere."

He laughs.  "I see how it's gonna be, okay.  I'm about the same place, I can probably heal from a broken bone okay but it's still not fun."

"Near-instant healing is my life's dream."

"Oh, I heal up a lot faster than ordinary people," he says, a little smugly.  "But broken bones still hurt a bit too much for me to want to get that hardcore every time I spar with somebody."

"I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie at times, heh. Probably a good thing I don't have instant healing..."

"But what's life without a little mortal peril from time to time?"

"Longer?"

"You mean boring."

He laughs.  "We're bad picks to be superheroes, aren't we."

"I think some recklessness is expected in the breed."

He snickers.  "Let's get to sparring, yeah?"

"Yeah! I'm ready when you are."

He rolls his neck and cracks his knuckles.  "Show me to the ring."

"I decided to get us a warehouse to use as a base, so it's a bit out of the way."

"Look forward to seeing it."

"Small chance we'll have neighbors, I think it's mostly shipping and storage warehouses around there but I bet there's some others with this idea..."

The warehouse itself is smaller than some of the others in the area - but still plenty large for their purposes. Codex hasn't gotten started on more than just clearing out a large space in the center yet, though she mentions she has plans for adding a room or several. There's already an office and a bathroom, at least.

"I like it.  How'd you afford this place?"

"My power's really useful for translation - even if someone just remembers a few words, if they've ever known a language, I get it, and I can translate as close to perfectly as is possible. I'll do a guide and some other rescue stuff for a dying language pro bono... But I've gotten plenty of commissions to do official translations for stuff, especially with building a body of works in a language. Plus I work with some universities, mostly to see if my power can grab really dead languages like proto-Indo-European - which actually turns out really weird, so far I can correct people but I can't grab new words they haven't guessed at - which pays well."

"Ooh, that's clever.  When we were younger Zeph thought about us trying to do something with power plants, since I'm pretty sure I'm getting free energy whenever I use my telekinesis, but I guess they have a lot of, like, pyrokinetics and stuff working in power plants already these days."

"Probably, yeah. Lots of powers are useful for free energy..."

"Yeah.  Superheroing's fun, though.  Speaking of which," he turns to Silver Wolf, "shall we?"

"Yeah!"

She'll bound into the middle of the warehouse as Codex backs off, bouncing and rocking back and forth a bit. "Ready when you are!"

oh no she's cute

He puts up his dukes.  "Ready."

"Onetwothree go!" And she darts forward, a bit to the side - she's fast and spry and laughing all the way - 

Her daemon's already darting to circle around beside her, eyes on Zeph.

Zeph stays on Seven's shoulder as he gets ready to block.  He lets her come to him, for now, ready to aim a punch if he sees an opening.

She twists a lot, and there's openings, but they're fast - still present, though.

He's fast, and he never moves in ways that are quite impossible, but sometimes he twists an arm along an angle that seems like it should hurt, or at least slow him down, or he'll hit her with some part of his body that doesn't seem to have the right leverage or musculature for exerting force.  If she's got attention to spare for that kind of analysis, she'll be able to tell that he's moving his skeleton around with his mind as much as with his muscles, and he presses that advantage as hard as he can.

She's more into what than why when it comes to fighting - she does slowly get an idea of when he's going to be pulling his tricks, getting better at twisting out of the way (and her joints are definitely bending ways human joints tend not to, while keeping all their strength).

She manages to bound off Mielikki's back, flipping over to strike at Mach Seven upside down - folding in half when he blocks, twisting her spine to lock her thighs around his neck.

Whoa shit he was not expecting that -

He'll try to duck out of the way at the last second and fail spectacularly, try to maintain balance and get loose and fail spectacularly again.

She successfully twists when he goes down to keep her leverage, instead of landing in an ungainly heap.

(His neck won't end up hurt - she's practiced this a ton of times and is willing to let go if it looks like he'll land weird. She ends up kind of halfway under his back, shifted into a proper grapple.)

"So uh, if this were a real fight I'd be dead now, yeah?"

"Or captured!" she says, disentangling herself and grandiosely offering him a hand up.

Hup!  "Nice moves.  I'll getcha next time."

"You too! And that'll be fun!"

He wipes his forehead.  "That was intense.  Any chance you got an en suite shower?"

"Not unless 'a hose' counts."