groovygamers.com

Kel had talked with Sammy about looking into the arson case.  The most recent one had just happened the other day.  He'd also talked about involving Colin.

(OOC: Since I'm not sure who all will be here, just post if you're part of this.  We can safely assume that anyone who might have been interested could be here?  If that's not right I need Kel to speak up.)

((OOC: Yes, I still need to get all the quick private lil' chit chats done for this, I've been busy for a while though, sorry 'bout that.))

(OOC:  Please do!  I'm feeling twitchy and bored.)

((I think we're ready!))

The scene of the latest arson fire was an abandoned house on the edge of what was Chicago.  Although caution tape was up pending the destruction of teh remnants of the house, there was no police presence to keep anyone away.  As reported in the papers the ceiling of one room, one of the few places in the structure that had a ceiling, had the word REVENGE burned into it.  The path the flames took seem to radiate out from one single point and form six streaks of destruction that apparently consumed most of the house when all was said and done.

Sammy flew up to Colin's window and tapped on the glass.  He had called earlier that day asking for some help getting out of his house without his mother's knowledge, and she was happy to oblige.  She hoped she'd be strong enough to carry him safely away from his house; he wasn't a huge guy, but he was big enough, and she wasn't sure of her limits.  One of these days, she was going to have to work out some sort of harness for situations like this.

When he opens his window, she crawlls inside and gives him a smile and a whispered greeting.  "OK.  I think I figured out the best way how to do this, but you can't tell Sarah in case she gets jealous.  We're both going to stand by the window, and I want you to wrap your arms around me as tight as you can, and I'll wrap my arms around you.  If it feels like you're slipping out of my hold, I'll try to grab you with my legs too.  It might look..."  Sammy's cheeks flush deeply.  "Never mind how it'll look, I don't want to risk dropping you.  Ready?" 

Colin said he was going to bed, but left a message just in case. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, but he wasn't telling his mom not to make her worry, and there was no point making her worry more if she happened in his room and didn't find him. Fortunately there's no street lamp near his window, and Sammy can pick him up quite safely.

When she taps on the window he welcomes her with one of his huge smiles.
"You only have to get me to the ground, I'll take my bike from there." he whispers to her "I'm sorry to have to ask you this, but I can't go out the door without getting caught until my mom goes to sleep, because she works just in front of it, and there's no fire escape either. I'll try to arrange a rope or something for next time, but this afternoon I had no time for it."
He tries to cling to her gently but strongly, not to touch anything he shouldn't touch, and to think of Sarah, only of Sarah. They awkwardly reach the ground and he awkwardly lets her go.

"Wow." he thought he knew how flying felt from the times he had seen through the blackbird's eyes, but this was totally different.

"Well, let's go. Can you get to the station by flight? How fast can you go?" he asks her, thinking of a race.

_________________________


Once they get to the burned building, Colin takes long looks around, and some photos too, before going to the point of origin.
He takes a deep breathe.
"Ok, I'll try to see if there's is something to be known here. I don't know how much it will take, it could be a moment, or it could be more. I'll likely won't notice what happens around me , so if you see someone coming this way, wake me up, please."

He sits in the point where it all started, touches the floor, and brings back the hands to his faces, where they leave some traces of soot. Then he closes his eyes for a moment, clearing his mind, before opening them again to whatever vision may come.

Kel wanders around the room as Colin sets up at the point of origin, he watches how it all streaked out and says, "Think he did it all at once or 6 seperate blasts?"  He then stares up at the single word of revenge, "Revenge, eh?  Wonder who they were trying to get back at."  He then looks over at the girls and says, "Hey did they say whether anyone was injured?"

OOC: Everyone can see this

The subtle smell of smoke intensifies and the little wisps of smoke that still rise from the remnants of the wood begin to come in thicker and thicker waves.  They take on the shapes of people, several boys and one girl.  It's hard to make out the details, but it's obvious what's happening.  There is a party in this place, this abandoned house.  In the other rooms are other smokey ghosts, all dancing and drinking, enjoying the night.  Here, in this room, it's not that way.  Here the girl is being violated.  They gag her to keep her from screaming, and then take turns holding her down and having their way with her.  A few minutes later the ghosts are all gone, except for the girl.  She's standing where Colin is sitting, and you can see the eire reflection of fire in her eyes.  You know her anger has been brewing, and she feels she's ready.  Then she burns the word REVENGE in the ceiling and walks out through the flames, unharmed.

The smoke is gone and the chill of the night air snaps everyone back to their senses.

Sammy releases Colin, and as she herself is released by him she feels an odd mixture of relief and disappointment.  The only clue that all might not be calm is the movement of her hair, vigorously fluttering in a breeze only she can feel on this otherwise still night.  She steps back quickly and shakes the odd feeling off.  "I think you can buy a fire escape ladder at a hardware store.  It hooks onto your window sill, and folds up in a neat little stack when it is not being used.  Maybe something like that would work for you."  Then, a fraction of a second too late, she realizes he has asked her a question.  "Um, I don't know how fast I can go.  I haven't clocked it."

*-*-*-*

Upon arrival at the arson scene, Sammy pokes around the room, looking for anything interesting.  She is stunned by the vision invoked by Colin, and a tear escapes from one of her eyes.  That poor girl...

"Good idea. Thanks."


"Wanna race to the station?" he asks with a mischievous smile.


_______________________________________________________



Colin couldn't stand to look as the girl... he can't even think of it, he feels dirty just having witnessed that. He can't even begin to think what it would be like to... How she must have felt. This is so wrong, so utterly wrong it leaves him without words, only tears. He quietly sobs to himself for a while, covering his face with his hands, so that it becomes even more black, except where tears wash away the soot.

The fire. The fire around, destroying the house is nothing compared to the fire within her. It's was only a momentary release, it's still burning in her soul.

"What can I do? How can I quench it? How can I cure her?" he whispers, unsure if he's asking himself, his friends, or the blackbird.

"Sure.  Can I fly straight there, or do I have to follow the same ground path as you?"
_______________________________________________________



Sammy speaks up.  Her voice is shaky because of what they've all just seen, but the intent behind her words is there.  "I won't stop her.  So long as she doesn't hurt anybody innocent, or start a fire that gets out of control, I won't.  I can't.  So far, she's not any worse than any one of us who has gone out hunting Superman dealers, or has plans to go after the witches.  I can't do it."

Colin thinks about it a bit.
"This time, as you wish. Next time, the winner will give an advantage to the loser. Ok?"

He waits for her to be ready, and mounts on his bike.

"Ready.... Set.... GO!"

_______________________________________________________



Colin looks up at Sammy, his voice still broken by the tears.
"It's not what I meant. I wouldn't go after her as a criminal. I would try to help her before she loses herself. Before she is consumed by her own fire."

Sammy grins back and accepts the challenge.  When Colin cries "Go!" she takes off in the direction she thinks will take her directly to their destination; to heck with following street directions and going around buildings!

OOC:  recall Line of Sight? (1d20=7) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=818110)


----------------

When Colin says he only wants to help the girl before she loses herself, Sammy nods.  "That's okay then."

(OOC:  time for this Cinderella to leave the ball for the night.  See you guys tomorrow, maybe.)

Sylvia stares in sick horror as the scene unfolds.  This poor girl, what they did to her.  A surge of sympathetic rage and revulsion roars over her until she shivers with the fever of it.  "Were the other arson sites party places, too?"

Sarah stood quietly beside Sylvia witnessing the strange image playing out before them all.  I'd burn them all down too...but I don't want innocents hurt..

She walks over to a broken up Colin and stands nearby.  "We have to stop her... but how can we keep her from hurting anyone?  Is there somewhere we could take her to get help?  Somewhere that wont burn down?"

Colin's phone rings...

Sylvia is sick and grim, as hollow-eyed as when Rory died.  "We have to find her first.  Think we could show this to somebody?  Your uncle, Kel?  Or Chris, Colin?  Maybe they can identify her."

Something flickers for a moment at the edge of Colin's consciousnees, but he's too distraught now to focus on it.

"You mean... it could have happened there too?"


"Maybe. I'd just..."
The blackbird's words, 'you can't save everyone' echo in his mind.
"I don't even know what I can do, but I'd just want to help her."

He stands up, and takes a step towards Sarah as if he was about to hug her, then looks at his hands and stops himself in time. He just looks at her as if he really needed that hug.


"I don't know if I can do that again. I'm not even sure how I did it. But once at home I'll make a sketch of her. And of those fucking bastards too."
Colin's anger is so uncharacteristic of him to be a bit scary. Fortunately his phone rings to distract him. He hopes it's not his mom.

"Hello?"

Colin, Is everything allright?

I just had a really strange feeling wash over me...I felt i should call. What's going on?

His tone is earnest and concerned.

Colin's voice is still a bit hoarse.

"Hi Seth. Yeah, it's all right. We are looking into those arsons that have been all over the news. We just found... a bad surprise. I... I really can't talk about it, but don't worry, we're fine. How weird you felt something too."

Kel's face is like cold steel, any emotion is covered over quickly, though his clenched fists give hint to his anger.  He looks up at the words, them now making quite a lot of sense.  Sylvia then asks her question, and Kel replies, "What were the other places again?"  Once someone tells Kel, he gives a thought to what he has heard over the past few months, the other places, what sort of people hung out there, trying to figure out if these were all incidents relating to the girl.  His mind is still flooding with that singular word, she's dangerous but in many ways she has a right to take them down, but to death? he muses in his head.

((Knowledge (Streetwise) http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=819473 whee!))

Are you sure you're ok...You don't sound so good.

I could get a ride to where ever you are if you're not ok. You said we, so it doesn't sound like you're alone... But...I'm babbling.

Just let me know if you need any help...I still owe you for the other day...

Kel goes over the other addresses and tries to match them to places he's heard there would be parties.  some of them he thinks might have been the places that were burned down.  There is a population of kids that like to party in abandoned houses.  Mostly city kids, but there are a few of the disenfranchised Oak Park crowd that make the scene alos.

Colin's memory kicks in. It's a bit soothing to have something else to think of. He closes his eyes and summons the articles he collected recently back to his mind.

"There have been ten of them. All abandoned buildings." he says, then he recites, the dates and addresses that were quoted in the last articles. "The only one where there have been fatalities was the October 3rd one. There was a drug lab in the building and seven people died. But the Black Hat has done something like that before too, so maybe it wasn't her. Or maybe she didn't know about it, and reacted in self-defense. The newspaper said it looks like the arsonist was trying to get the hang of his powers. If this is the last one, that word over there probably means that now she feels ready, and that she's only just begun."

_______________________________________________________



"Hey, you don't owe me anything. Stop thinking about it. And don't worry, I'm fine. It's was just... I awakened the memory of something that happened here, and it wasn't nice.

There's nearly the whole crew here, except Megan and Donnie that are busy. I don't know how long we'll stay, but if you want you can come too."

Sammy can't help but to overhear the last part of Colin's conversation.  Anxious to get away from this place where such horrible things happened, she leaps on the chance.  "Does Seth need a ride?  I could go get him, it wouldn't take long at all."

"Seth, Sammy's offering to come and pick you up. What do you say?"

Kel nods, and judging by what he knows says, "Chances are good that at least a few of these have been her, maybe not.  But still, I mean, if you figure that...it...happened and then the fire right afterward, then it might not all fit.  But if what we saw, was just something that occurred at two different times, then it means she's gearing up for big time revenge and all the other burnings were small time.  These guys aren't model citizens, and I think it'd be hard to get them all to admit to it, but we might get some good suspects if we check out with the right people."  He then shakes his head and says, "We need to find her first though, she could go crazy with this sort of power..."  He continues shaking his head, trying to figure out what to do if he finds her, stop her or help her.

That would be just fine...I'll be at the park down the street from my house...

"Wait a moment."

Colin offers Sammy the phone so Seth can explain directly to her.

OOC: Sorry I nearly forgot. Who won the race? :) Do I have to roll anything?

OOC: She won even with poor directional skills.  She can fly pretty fast.

"We might be able to find her if we go through the yearbooks at the public library, but I'm thinking she might have checked into a hospital or filled a police report."

"I hope we can convince her to get some help.  I've never talked to anyone professional about stuff before.."  She thinks about that for a minute.  "I never got called in for counseling at school.  Are they still doing that?  Sorry thats a tangent.  But it might be helpful if we could get a name of someone trained in this sort of thing to at least consult with."

Sarah walks around the burnt out area.  "Should we go look at some of the other fires?  I mean.. is there anything useful we can do with tonight?"

Sammy gets directions to the park from Seth.  When they have finished their conversation, she turns to Sarah and says "I went for counseling.  I saw the guy they brought in from outside to help carry the extra load.  His name is Dr. Hugo Strange."  She pauses.  "He knows about me having powers, so the rest of you would have to be really careful talikng to him about this girl if you don't want to out yourselves to him too.  He might add two and two."




As she leaves the scene, she tells the others that she has her cell phone with her and to call if they need her help.  She doesn't expect to be gone very long.  She soars over the Chicago suburbs, just high enough to avoid casual notice, the train of her dress streaming behind her.  After a few minutes en route, she appears over the park and gently descends to the ground in front of Seth.

She grins and utters a glib "Hey, Musicman -- I heard you need a ride?", but is internally trying very hard to think of some way of explaining how they'll have to hold on to each other in flight without feeling as awkward as she did earlier tonight with Colin.

"We could also ask Jack, the Banners, or... I think I know someone else too who could be of help."
He's thinking of Sky and her friends in Eagle Force.

"Yeah... I would drive... But I'm only 15.

So.... How exactly do we do this...?

Sammy shifts self consciouslly.  "Well... this worked before."  She steps right up against Seth, pressing close against him.  "I wrap my arms around you tight, like this."  She leaves very little space between them.  "And you wrap your arms around me, and hold on as tight as you can.  Then we take off.  If you feel yourself slipping or even just freaking out, let me know and we'll come down somewhere safe."

"Like ballroom dancing...

Well my intentions are pure my lady...so, Seth's arms wrap arround Sammy..."Up, up and away, and all of that.."

Seth felt kind of funny. They were flying which was weird enough, and he just started to notice Sammy. I mean really notice her.

He was busy noticing Megan a lot, but...Yeah, now he was just being silly. Best enjoy the ride. It was the only flying he was going to do for a while probably...

Initially Sammy's concentration is fixed on flying and on not dropping Seth.  After a few minutes she feels more confident in her abilities, and she relaxes a bit.  Out of the blue she says "Ballroom dancing... you're right, it is kind of like that.  Or ice dancing.  Except... hold on!" She moves them into a few long slow swirls across the sky, and laughs in delight at the successful maneuver.  "That's more like it!"  She points in the direction of a strip mall.  "There's the jewelry store clock tower, so we're only a couple of minutes away."

"So, what do we do? We check the other fire scenes? Then I suggest we go to check on the only one that had victims. We go home and then we try to find some record about her or what happened to her to find her? We ask someone for advice? I'd call Jack and see what he tells us."

He gets out his phone, but if anyone stops him, he doesn't call.

Kel waves his hand when Colin brings out his phone and says, "I think the best course of action is to try and ask around the kind of dirtbags that would hang out a place like this, see if any of them know something that could help out.  Check for the records, somehow.  But I really don't think we could do much else tonight, unless we wanted to check the other scenes, everything else will really have to wait for the weekend when we can get in contact with people more easily."  He then looks around, waiting to see what everyone else thought of his plan.

"Some homeless people might have seen something.  Or some of the neighbors.  You could even pull the super-hero gig on them if you want.  Tell them you're looking into who is causing the fires.  Wait.. even better, couldn't Sylvia make us look like firemen  or something?  People might talk to the firemen when they wouldn't talk to the police.  If you tell them there might be an arsonist running around in the area they will probably tell you a lot.  Who wants their house to be set on fire?"  Sarah seems pretty pleased with this idea.  "Oh and if they've already been through you just tell them that this is a..... independent investigation ordered by the city because they are taking these crimes very seriously.  I heard that on CSI the other night."

"That's not a bad idea."


____________________________________


As they head home, Colin approaches Sammy for a moment.

"Sammy, can I ask you something? You see, when you arrived tonight, with this dress of yours, and the moon... well, would you consider, one of these nights, to pose for me, while flying?"

"Clearly, it would be something just for the two of us, I would keep them secret, but still, it's something I'd really like to do."

Sammy looks at Colin with questions in her eyes.  Why would Colin want... never mind.  He's a photographer.  This is what photographers do.  That's all there is to it.  Besides, I picked this costume because it would look so good while I was flying, so its good that somebody notices.

After a moment she seems to come to a decision.  "Yes, that would be okay.  I can always disguise my face somehow too, just to make sure I'm not recognized if they do go past you and me.  Pick a good night, when the moonlight is the way you want it to be, and we can do this."

"Thank you!" there's no trace of malice in Colin's wide smile "I'll look forward to it."

"Does anyone want to go chat up the neighbors?" asks Sarah a little hopefully.

"Sure," Sylvia says.  She glances at the others, wondering if anyone has a bright idea for how to proceed.

Kel nods, "We should get something else done tonight, I'll come along I was planning on doing it anyway."

"Did you like the fire investigator idea?" asks Sarah.

"I did. but it makes sense for only a few of us. Up to three, I'd say."

Sarah grins "Well then you three can have at it...  Kel for the muscle, Sylvia because you need her for the trick and Colin you can pick up impressions or sense the insensible to find out more information."