It wasn't even ten yet as Cole moved through the Neon District. Moya hadn't called again, and he didn't have any desire to return to Zeke just yet. He was much too worked up from what happened during the day. Not only he had been called a terrorist, his girlfriend had left him, he also inadvertently had led a group of people to their demise, started working with a shady governmental woman and discovered how powerful he really was.
There was a lot of pent-up aggression and anxiousness still whirling through his body and he had to let them out somehow.
He found beating up Reapers was a great outlet.
He jogged along the rooftops, looking for red hoodies and for people who might be either John White or the guy from Archer Square. Instead, he saw many people just sitting in the streets, moaning in pain, and even more searching through trash for anything to eat. It made Cole frown unhappily. The feds did drop some food, but it was far too little to feed all of the people here. Nobody was there to help them. There must be some way to relieve them, he wondered. Some little way, even if only fixing what went wrong.
He sighed in annoyance. Again, it looked like he was the only one who could have the possibilities to do something, even though he did not feel they deserved it.
They did try to capture him, after all.
But then again, they only tried because they had no better idea, because they were desperate. He wondered whether he would be doing the same thing if he was in their shoes.
He paused, glancing up at a familiar voice. "In case you haven't heard", the TV Jacker claimed from a hacked billboard at the street, "There's a massacre at Stampton Bridge." Cole growled and hurried off, fighting down the urge to just blast that bloody screen. He never liked that bastard anyways, and even less so since he branded him a terrorist. He really should search for him and give him a piece of his mind, maybe fry his electronics along with him. He really didn't care that this might hurt the public opinion of himself, but just the look on that idiot's face once he's done with him would be so worth it.
With a grunt, he turned away and scaled a four-story building in under three seconds flat. Again, he was amazed with his increase in speed, power and stamina. It were only roughly eight hours since he realized the full potential of his abilities, and he already didn't want to trade them for anything in the world. He was certain he wouldn't even want to give them up if it meant turning back time and prevent all of this from ever happening. Almost.
He found three more Reapers and fried them just for closure, until he groaned and doubled over, panting.
He felt drained from running around and zapping people.
Cole huffed and turned his attention towards an AC unit and spread his arms to drain it. In an instant, he felt completely fine again. He wasn't tired anymore and he wasn't as hungry as before. The only thing that hadn't changed was his thirst, so he plopped down on the edge of the roof and pulled a plastic bottle from his bag, unscrewed the cap and took a sip from it. He glanced upwards, wondering once more about himself.
It appeared as if he could replace great amounts of food and even sleep by just recharging himself, could heal from injuries near-instantly, though even he was aware that there were limits somewhere. Normal human limits. He knew he should probably figure them out before he bit something off that was too much for him to chew.
Like, he wasn't sure what would happen if he got shot into the head from close-up. Would it have an effect at all? Would he die? Would he be just knocked unconscious?
As far as he knew, he was still mostly human, even though he was a lot tougher than normal people. Maybe he shouldn't tempt fate too much. Better safe than sorry, eh?
He phone rang. Cole blinked at the number. Moya again.
He clicked the button to reply. "What now?"
"One of my contacts, an electrician named Brandon Carey, didn't check in last night", the woman told him. As always, straight to the point. While socially not quite adept, it was effective, Cole had to admit. "He's pretty important", Moya continued, "So you need to find him."
"And where should I look? I don't even know what he looks like", Cole wanted to know.
"He was last seen in the alley across the street from Archer square."
She ended the call again, and Cole got up with a sigh, putting away his bottle. He had a pretty good idea where that was. He knew of a small-time electronic shop near Archer Square, had often delivered packages there or- one time- called one of their men to fix their broken fuse box.
He started moving, sticking to the rooftops as much as possible. The way his body balanced itself, even when jumping onto a swaying wire, was incredible. It was as if there was no way for him to ever fall off from somewhere, bar the ground collapsing beneath him.
He grinned. Let's see Zeke say again that this runner girl was in any way better than him now.
Okay, maybe he was being childish, but what else was to do there?
He was on top of a eight-story apartment building near Archer Square. Without bothering to check the height, he jumped off the roof and hit the ground in a roll, unharmed and much to the surprise of a few pedestrians around. If he was moving fast enough, nobody would recognize him.
He made his way away from the main street and into a side alley, weaving his way past burning oil barrels filled with trash that spewed black smoke. With the electricity being rationed, people looked for different ways to keep warm.
Cole snorted to prevent inhaling the fumes, and hurried along a parking lot, then turned right to head to the electronics store.
He didn't see anybody who looked like an electrician...he didn't see anybody, period.
But there was a weird large lump on the floor. Cole frowned and moved closer, carefully checking the area with his Radar Pulse to scan for dangers. There wasn't anybody hidden, but...Cole furrowed his brows. There was a weak charge coming from the lump in front of him.
Curious, he stepped closer.
Squish
Cole stopped and stared down at his shoe. Blood stuck to the sole. His eyes widened, when he finally realized just what it was that was in front of him.
A dead woman.
He swallowed and carefully knelt down next to her to check her more closely. She lay face-down in the dirt, her blonde hair fanned around her head and stained dark with blood. Cole exhaled slowly and carefully reached out to touch her. She was still warm, and the blood was still fresh. So she didn't die too long ago.
Probably Reapers, he thought darkly when he noticed the faint smell of gun powder.
He clicked his phone on. "Your boy isn't here, Moya", he muttered, "Just a dead woman."
"A woman?" Moya asked, "That...doesn't make any sense."
Of course she didn't care. Cole wondered what kind of stick stuck up her ass if this left her that cold. But then again, she had probably seen more dead bodies than he ever had, given her job.
He glanced at the body again, slowly turning her over to see her face. She looked like forty or fifty maybe, and was a pretty thing. He sighed, laying her gently down again. Nothing he could do here anymore.
Wait...
He frowned again. He could still feel some electrical charges nearby- inside the body. Not unusual. Every living organism did contain electricity- the nervous system communicated with the body via synaptic discharges, and even with death, they didn't disappear immediately. Cole, now a human battery just as much as he was an electrical sensor, was able to sense those.
He wondered whether he could read a person's memories, which were, per definition, nothing more than electrical signals in the brain. This woman wasn't dead for long, so maybe there were still some residual energies left?
"Hang on", he muttered into his phone, hoping Moya would get the message and shut up to let him concentrate. He touched the woman's temples and focused inside, giving off weak charges to re-activate her brain, even if only for a split second.
"Reapers!" A woman shrieked. Cole flinched back, whirling around. There was nobody...but he could have sworn she screamed right next to him.
His eyes widened.
Hell. He had just heard the dead woman's last words.
He blinked, staring at his hands. That was...impossible. And still...
Cole grit his teeth and tried it again, this time generating more power to get a clearer picture.
And this time, he could see what she saw.
He saw Reapers, approaching them from her perspective. He heard her voice inside his head, begging them to leave her husband alone. He saw him run, saw the Reapers aim and target her, before his vision was filled with a white-hot pain.
Cole jerked back, panting in panic, staring at the body.
He had just experienced the woman dying. He had seen her die. Hell, he knew who she was.
That was sick.
He blinked, trying to get his brain to work. She had called his name, Brandon. Brandon Carey? Holy shit.
She was his wife. And he just read her memories.
"Whoa"
"What just happened?", Moya asked, probably worried about his sharp hiss when he flailed back.
Cole grunted, not really understanding what had transpired. "I had a...vision?" He replied weakly. "About the Reapers kidnapping Brandon. He glanced at the body. This is his wife, Lynnae." He grit his teeth, eyes slipping out of focus for a moment. It was almost as if...he could still see Brandon running away. "I can see the echo...of someone running away."
"Follow it", Moya ordered, though there was a certain...edge to her voice. As if she couldn't believe it either. "We need to find out what happened."
Cole grunted and send out a Pulse, seeing the blurred trail going away from this place.
It wasn't so much a shadow of a person, as more their specific body-own synaptic charges leaving an individual trail behind. Cole was actually considering following the ionic charge of a person. Like a shark.
He wasn't so sure whether it was awesome, plain creepy, or both.
Cole took a step to the front, then paused and glanced back. He couldn't just let Lynnae lie here in the alley. There was a clinic nearby, he knew. And he did have the reading on Brandon now.
He knelt down and gathered the limp body into his arms, and sprinted out of the alleyway.
---------------
"What the Hell was that about?!", Moya growled through the phone. Cole snorted and clicked the reply button.
"I couldn't let her lie in that alley", he said as he pulled away from the Central Clinic. "Anything could have gotten to her."
"People die all day"
"But that doesn't mean we have to treat them like shit", the courier bit back. He was in no mood to argue, so he cut the conversation and continued following the trail of Brandon's 'electrical smell'. He had passed several streets and alleyways that way, and his head was starting to hurt from the repeated Radar Pulses he used.
Just as he pulled into a parking lot, however, his brain lurched and forced him to stop. He already knew what this particular sting meant.
Danger
His eyes narrowed on the lone figure standing at the other end. The figure noticed him too, and their head snapped up with a snarl.
A Reaper.
He wore a white hooded trench coat, no shoes like most Reapers and held a machine gun clenched between his fingers. Cole swallowed, charging up static electricity all around his arms. Somehow, he didn't like the feeling of that guy.
The Reaper snarled once, before he suddenly blinked out of existence, even before he got ready to line up a shot with him. Cole jerked back, eyes wide. Where did he go?
*Snarl*
He whirled around, just in time to see the Reaper appear suddenly besides him. The Reaper meanwhile didn't waste any time as he slammed his hands into the ground, creating a tremendous shockwave that ran through the floor and cracked the asphalt. The sheer force from it hurled Cole backwards several yards, but also raced through his body, impacting into his internal organs like a massive fist. All breath was knocked out of his lungs and countless small blood vessels simply popped from the sheer force. Pain rushed through his system like a wildfire, as if countless alert signals blared to life at the same time. At the same time, the world had grown strangely mute, with only his pulse racing inside his ears. All of the colors were gone, leaving his vision in gray tones.
Shit
The Reaper snarled and vanished again. Cole swore and launched himself off the floor, ignoring the blinding pain. He had to get off the ground, so he leapt upwards and clung to a fire escape, then pulled his body up onto the metal grates of the stairs, just in time to avoid another shockwave attack. Cole grunted in pain and lifted his hand, shooting several bolts of lightning at the guy to make him back off- and most importantly, fry the gun in his hand.
The Reaper snarled, hooded head whipping up into his direction. Cole coughed once, feeling how his insides pulled themselves back together, before he got up and unleashed several Shockwaves of his own into the guy. The Reaper stumbled back, growling, until his back hit a car.
Cole scowled and switched back to lightning bolts. However, this time, he targeted the car. While most of the electricity dissipated harmlessly across its surface, he did short out the electronic inside- and more importantly, started cooking the gas in the tank. Once the ignition point was reached, the vehicle exploded in a glorious ball of fire, taking the Reaper with it.
The courier gave off another Radar Pulse to find the guy, but didn't find anything alive in the inferno.
With a groan, he sat back down, trying to catch his breath.
"Cole", Moya called, "What was that just now? You had static on your side."
"Reaper", Cole replied with a pained groan as his ribs snapped back into position and fixed themselves. And he felt it. Oh God. "Guy in white hood", he described it. "Had some sort of...powers."
"Powers?" Moya sounded surprised. "What kind of powers?"
"Could teleport", he replied panting. "And had some sort of shockwave. Like mine, but...through the ground."
Moya fell silent for a moment. "Shit", she growled, "Kessler was right."
"What?"
"He assumed that there were more than just a few conduits. Rarer ones, but stronger, and more common ones, but weaker." Moya sighed. "Looks like you just met one of them."
Cole blinked. "There are more like me?!"
"It's a genetic trait, I told you. You are unique, but it is possible you'll meet more of those guys."
"Great", Cole grunted. "Guy nearly fried me."
"Then I suggest you'll be more careful", Moya finished with a deadpan tone before she clicked the phone off.
"Bitch", he growled. His heartbeat had calmed down, and the colors had returned. Cole carefully glanced down, flinching slightly when the ground blurred out of focus, before he gathered enough courage to drop down. His knees weren't as solid as they should be and his legs were shaking badly. He groaned and pulled himself towards another parked car to drain it of its battery charge.
Or that had been the plan. He blinked, realizing that there was no charge to be gained, while the battery died just the same moment. Though why came to him a moment later: With a moan, he draped his palm across his face. "Faraday Cage", he bit out, "Physics eight grade."
He wouldn't be getting a charge out of that car, not anymore, and all of the other cars weren't suited either, unless he managed to pry open the hood and get to the battery that way. Which meant he had to look for another source, though he quickly found one, in the form of a lamp at the side of the parking lot. He limped over and started to drain it, and this time the tell-tale arch of energy poured into his body until the discharge broke the light bulb. At least, he was feeling better again.
He shook his head in the darkness. "Okay, note to myself: Fry the guys in the white hoodies before anybody else."
He closed his eyes and focused on Brandon's electrical trail. As soon he was sufficiently sure he had picked it up again, he started following the echo once more. A bunch of (normal) Reapers rushed towards him as he crossed a street. He wasted no time to smack them all back before he fried them violently, then continued his way. He wondered how these guys knew where the heck he was or whether they knew that he would follow the guy they had tried to kidnap before.
As he followed the echo, his phone rang again, followed by Zeke's agitated voice. "Pick up your damn phone!"
"What's up?" Cole asked, carefully keeping an eye on the track Brandon left.
"The Feds, man, that's what up!", Zeke's voice almost pitched. "Watching our every move! Even caught one scoping out the roof." Cole blinked, his movement slowing down slightly. Zeke and his paranoia...
"Was leaning against a wall down there", his roommate continued, and Cole could imagine him waving his arms around. "Eatin' a fresh apple. Now, you tell me, where the Hell'd he get that?!"
Cole groaned. "I dunno Zek", he replied, "But if we want out of here, this is the way it's got to be." He got tired of his best friend's paranoia.
"C'mon man, don't be stupid!", Zeke wailed, "They'll ride you as long as they can- but the second you're no longer useful...BAM! You vanish! Permanently!"
"I think all that conspiracy stuff has rotted your brain"
"Don't kill the messenger, brother. I'm just tellin' you like it is."
Cole grunted, eyes narrowing as he noticed a whole lot of, well, enemies, appearing on his internal map. He was close to the Empire City power station. Well, at least he wouldn't have to worry about being without juice.
"Listen Zeke", he cut his friend off mid-rant. "There are a whole bunch of guys nearby, just waiting to take a pot-shot at me. I don't have time to talk yet, but we'll speak later."
Zeke was silent for a moment, before he sniffed. "Okay man. Jus' be careful, okay?"
Cole grunted and started moving. He spied three guys with guns, and was upon them before they could react. He zapped all of them rapidly, downing them before the others noticed what was going on. Then the whole group of Reapers was trying to take him down. Cole heard snarls and bullets pinging off the ground behind him. He swore and dove behind cover, then quickly darted out of it once he no longer heard shooting. One of the more heavier dressed Reapers noticed him and managed to put a few bullets into his shoulders, but Cole was driving mostly by adrenaline right now and could ignore their bite. Instead, he leapt at the guy and set both hands against his head, unleashing enough voltage to turn his brain into mush.
The others scattered, trying to shoot him from behind the transformers. Cole grit his teeth and unleashed more bolts, blowing the junkies up along with the obstacles they hid behind. Oops.
Hopefully these things weren't all too necessary.
Luckily, he managed to pick all of them off, except one. Cole spun around and leapt over a low fence to find the last Reaper standing near the main hub. In an instant, he realized that something was off with him. He wore a gray hoodie, and didn't have any sort of gun on him. He did, however, have several bulky packages strapped to his chest. As he became aware of the courier, he spun around, roaring nonsense, before he ripped two burning sticks into the air.
No. Not sticks.
Dynamite
Cole jerked back, but didn't manage to move in time when the guy ignited the packages around his torso. His eyes widened as he watched the guy burst into flames, shortly before the world around him was drowned out in a wordless shriek of superheated air and the loud crack of the blast. The shockwave wasn't as bad as the conduit's had been, but it was still enough to steal his breath for a moment. Cole found himself flung backwards several yards, and he hit one of the transformers hard. His head spun and his ears rang, but he was still alive. Singed, yes, but at least alive.
The same couldn't be said about the Reaper, though.
Or the electrical grid of the city.
Cole groaned, pitch-black darkness swallowing everything around him. His head felt strangely fuzzy and his eyes were unfocused.
"What the Hell happened?", Moya's voice cut through the shadows and through the strangely muted world Cole saw. "The entire Neon just went dark."
Cole groaned, trying to focus despite the raging headache. "That's 'cause one of those maniacs blew up a whole substation", he told her. He moaned in pain, but tried to focus on Brandon's echo again. "Man", he grunted to himself, "Brain feels like it's in a vise."
Moya seemed alarmed. "Your body must be reacting to the absence of electricity", she noted. Cole groaned again, and her voice turned hard. "You're going to have to man up and find Carey. If we don't restore the power, the Reapers will be unstoppable."
The courier grunted and tried to focus on the trail of Brandon instead. Okay, he could do that. Brandon first, then the electricity. He could work with that.
The trail...vanished. Cole blinked, trying to focus his blurry eyes, before he looked again. The trail was gone...on the street at least. He glanced down, eying the manhole cover on the ground.
Huh.
He could sense Brandon Carey somewhere down there- and he could sense rolling waves of electricity as well. The concrete and steel cut him off from it, but that wouldn't stop him. He dropped into a crouch and pulled the hundred-pound cover open, just enough for him to slip inside and let it drop shut over his head once more.
Didn't even strain a muscle.
Cole's nose scrunched up the moment his feet hit the tiled ground beneath. Right. Sewers. At least down here was some electricity, enough for him to not feel all light-headed anymore. He let lightning rush over his arms in order to have some light, and glanced around. It wasn't ideal, and it smelled really bad. Oh God.
He was so going to need a shower after this.
But first things first: Find Brandon. Restore the power. Beat up a bunch of Reapers Thor Style. Then shower and sleep.
He clicked his phone on, pleasently surprised to find it responsive. Huh. Guesss whatever Zeke did to make it shock-resistant boosted its signal. Or maybe he himself boosted the signal through his powers.
"All right", he told Moya, "I've tracked the echo to the sewers."
"The Reapers must've needed Carey's help in shutting down the underground linear transformer. Find the transformer and figure out a way to get it back online. If they killed the circuit, find a way to re-establish it." Moya informed him. Cole blinked.
"Uh" he started lamely, "I think I know a few of those words."
Moya sighed and he could almost imagine her rolling her eyes. "A large sparking piece of machinery. Check whether both sides are powered. If not, figure out how to make them."
Okay. That he understood. He went to the edge of the platform he was on and peered into the darkness ahead of him. His nose scrunched up at the smell of the raw sewage beneath, but he could see something that glowed with the faint blue shine of electricity. Must be the transformer Moya talked about.
"Are you going to have problems finding your way down there?", Moya asked.
"Nah", Cole grinned slightly. "I got into Urban Exploration about four years ago. Crawled all over the city. I know these sewers like the back of my hand."
"Good." Moya cut the connection and Cole eyed the area.
A group of large tanks with a narrow walking edge around their middle fringed one side of the sewer canal, allowing access if one could climb. Good thing he was damn good at that.
Cole easily hopped against the first one and balanced himself there, then climbed along the side to reach the next one. Reaching the platform the transformer was on was laughable easy.
But...the courier swallowed at the sight of the thing. It was a massive construct, with wires and cables and two huge engines on either side. Only one part was sparking with a massive lightning discharge, the other was off.
Moya said to re-establish them, huh?
But how? Cole looked around, hoping to find something like...a high voltage cable or something, maybe a iron rod he could jam inside...
But there wasn't anything.
He paused, frowning. Wasn't he an electric conducter too? He did survive two electrocutions even when he didn't know about his powers, and he quite literally ate lightning.
Would it work if he closed the circuit long enough for the second half to start working?
Cole glanced at the machine, swallowing. This looked like it could turn a grown man into charcoal in an instant. Even to him, who was more or less immune towards lightning, it would probably be painful.
But he was really the only one who could do it, and Brandon counted on him. So Cole swallowed the doubts and leapt up, seizing both coils at the same time.
Hurting wasn't even beginning to describe it. Cole gasped, before his jaw slammed shut when thousands of volts raced through his body. Every cell was burning, every nerve frying. Every single muscle cramped together. Cole groaned through his nose, eyes screwed shut as the voltage slammed through his body, scorching him from the inside. His legs bent, then his back arched. Everything hurt.
But he didn't let go. Lightning lashed out of him and into the machine, closing the circuit and restarting the dormant side. Only when the second side started sparking, he finally let go, dropping back to flop against the grated floor while his body was still giving off energy. He was panting, trying very hard to not hyperventilate as the pain began to subside.
More even, there was something...different about him.
Every nerve tingled, every single of his senses had become sharper. He felt stronger, more powerful. His fingers twitched and a warm tingling feeling rolled through his body in waves.
He grunted and slowly sat up, glancing at the machine. It wasn't half-bad, actually. Would have been better without the 'whole burning from the inside' thing.
He became aware of moaning. He looked to the side, sending out his Pulse. He found somebody lying on the ground across the sewage canal. He jumped over, finding a very young teen on the floor. Asides from the question why the Hell he was here, there were more pressing matters at the moment. He could see a bleeding wound on the back of the boy, where a Reaper's bullet had hit him. The door further down the canal was locked, but that wasn't a problem.
He knelt besides the kid.
"Can you hear me?"
"It hurts so much", the teen replied between rasping sobs. Cole kept telling himself he shouldn't care, but just walking away seemed so...heartless. So instead, he looked around for anything to help the kid with. He should get the bullet out, but he didn't have anything to use.
Cole paused. He could heal himself with his powers...could he heal others too? The process he used to heal himself- namely speeding up his natural self-restoration- could it be transfered to otheres as long he kept in contact with them?
He glanced down at the kid, then placed on hand against the bleeding wound. "Uh-" he started, getting his attention. "I'm not sure what's going to happen", he told him, "But I will try something. Try not to...freak out. Okay?"
The boy whimpered. Cole focused on the bleeding wound, trying to remember what it felt like to heal himself. Once he had a firm grasp on the idea of healing, he concentrated on the kid. He wasn't too sure what he was actually doing, but he was trying. He pressed both fists into the kid's back, then send a surge of energy through his body.
The teen gasped in pain and fear when lightning crackled around him, though mere seconds later, everything had faded. Cole blinked at the sight of a blood-stained bullet sitting on an equally stained and ripped shirt, that was covering healed skin.
The courier grinned. Looks like he could actually heal with his powers.
Awesome.
----------------
The kid was out cold for a moment, and Cole stuck around waiting until he got better. As the teen climbed to his feet slowly, he blinked in surprise.
"I'm...fine?" He stumbled back when he saw the lightning arching across Cole's arms. "You- did you heal me?!"
"Yeah", Cole replied. He inclined his head. "How did you come down here anyways?"
The kid shuffled his feet. "My parents and some friends- we came down here to escape the insanity on the surface. It's not pretty...but it is warm and secure. Or it was secure." He sniffed. "Those Reapers have found us."
Cole snorted. "Then show me where. I'm gonna take care of them."
The kid frowned for a good moment, before he nodded and opened the door. Across a catwalk, Cole could see a small encampent. He also saw Reapers and a bunch of other people.
"Wait here", the courier told the teen, then started running. The Reapers noticed him with snarls, and whipped their guns up. Cole was an easy target, sparking the way he was he could be easily made out in the darkness. But he had also a whole lot of charge after that transformer situation, so he was willing to take a few bullets to avoid having to waste time. Maybe it was the anger, or the adrenaline, or maybe the power boost he got from the transformers, but somehow it didn't hurt as much as it did when he got shot. Cole lunged at the first guys and unleashed a lightning barrage, frying four of them and halving their total number. The other four backed off, snarling and still shooting, but Cole simply shot a few lightning bolts at them to knock them over. "Stay Down!" He shouted at them, and suddenly the lightning started arching around them before it formed shackles around their arms and legs, pinning them to the floor.
Cole blinked and slowly approached them, glancing at the fetters. Cool. Lightning handcuffs.
He could think of a few usages for them: some pretty obvious, some...well for private reasons.
He snickered under his breath and turned to the civilians. They looked bruised and injured. As much as it would waste even more time, it would be a dick move to leave them like that. Cole leaned down and started to heal them. It was only the right thing to do.
The people stayed unconscious for the time it took his powers to fix them up. The kid approached him with wide eyes just as he was about to heal a slightly older teen.
"Wow! That was incredible!" He called out, "You just went in here and BAM! You beat all those idiots!"
"Don't mention it", he replied as he stood up and dusted off his pants. "Just doing what I should be doing."
"Man! You are a hero!" The teen beamed. Cole blinked. Hero? Zeke called him a freak (good-natured, but still), to Moya he was a tool to be used, to pretty much everybody above ground he was a terrorist, but to the kid here...
"Hey man, is there any way I can help you?"
"Not really", Cole replied, "Well, maybe. Look, I'm looking for a guy called Brandon Carey. Electrician. He was kidnapped by the Reapers. You seen him?"
"Well, there was somebody who got dragged along", the kid replied. "He should be further down."
Cole nodded. "Thanks"
He started moving away from the encampment, clicking his phone. "The transformer's back on. Now what?"
"Restart the distribution substation", Moya commented. Cole sucked in air to ask her what the heck she meant with that, but she beat him to it. "Charge the relay on its front. That should be enough to get the power back online."
"Got it", Cole swung himself across another sewage gap and balanced across some sturdy looking pipes. "Also, I caught some Reapers down here. Could you maybe send someone to pick them up? There are civilians too, but they're harmless."
"Caught them- how?" Moya cut herself off. "I'll see to it."
"Thanks."
He jumped from the thicker pipe to a thinner one, but this one did manage to hold his weight. Thank God.
"Hey man, you there?"
Cole blinked. Zeke? He answered. "Yeah?"
Zeke squirmed on his end before he spoke up. "Trish just stopped by", he said. Cole stopped with a hiss. Did she want to talk to him? Did she want to see him? Shit, he wasn't anywhere nearby and smelled like sewer. "Uh- she picked up some of her stuff, barely talked to me", Zeke continued before he could ask. "When I brought you up, she suddenly got like really silent and weird and just walked out."
Cole winced. "She thinks I killed her sister."
"Hell, it ain't your fault that package was a bomb- Hell, you're lucky to be alive. She just needs to see things for what they are." He paused for a moment, then added: "Her friend thought the same."
Cole furrowed his brows. "Friend?"
"Yeah. A blonde nurse. She told me she didn't mean it. Said she'd talk to her later on, though right now she has to work things out herself."
"Blonde? Did she have a big dog with her?" Cole asked. "Well, more a bear with a collar, really."
"No", Zeke replied, "But I didn't really check things out."
There was not much he could really do at the moment. The courier sighed "I'll catch you later then." He cut the connection. He couldn't afford being distracted anyways- much of the catwalks were broken down, so he had to focus on jumping the gaps unless he wanted to take a bath in sewage. He also had to take out the few Reapers that lurked in the darkness.
He jumped back onto a platform, when he heard a startled gasp. He drew closer, noticing a man cowering back behind a door made of sturdy iron bars. Cole froze. He knew the guy.
From Lynnae's memories. It was Brandon. Her husband.
"What are you doing here?" Brandon asked, shielding his eyes from the bright light, and also trying to protect his body from any eventual attacks. "Did they see you?"
Cole frowned. The man seemed mostly fine, but he was scared. Probably of the Reapers. He lifted his hands, trying to appear as soothing as possible. "Listen, there's chaos up there. I need to turn on the substation."
"Are you out of your damn mind?!" Brandon asked with a pitched voice. "The Reapers will kill my wife if I let you in here!"
Cole winced. His wife was dead. He sighed and lowered his head. "Lynnae is dead", he said, hearing the startled gasp of the electrician. "They shot her."
The man backed off. "How do you know her name?!"
Cole shook his head. "I found her", he told him. He grit his teeth slightly, "I couldn't do anything for her anymore."
The man sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands. "I knew I shouldn't...my poor Lynnae..." He started sobbing uncontrollably.
Cole shuffled his feet. "Look", he tried to sound as soothing as possible, "I am sorry for your loss- but I have to get to that substation. I need the power back on- to stop them from hurting any more people...to make them pay."
Brandon wiped his sleeve over his face and struggled back to his feet, nodding wordlessly. The door slipped open, allowing Cole to enter. He glanced at Brandon. "Are you going to be okay?"
The man sniffed and nodded. "Won't be easy...but I'll try."
"Good. A lot of people lost somebody. This whole thing sucks." Cole squeezed his shoulder in a reassuring manner, then hurried off. He still had something to do.
The substation was just further down the tunnel. Cole glanced at it, eying the relay. Moya said to charge it to make it work.
He inhaled and took hold of it, then focused on his internal energy. He unleashed a massive amount of it, sending it rushing into the machine. The substation gurgled, before it started humming.
The courier watched it for a moment longer, then turned and headed back.
-----------------
When Cole popped back out of the manhole he first climbed through, he was glad to see the Neon brightly lit once more.
He was also happy to breathe in the fresh air, and seeing how late it was, he should probably return to Zeke for a shower and some rest. He yawned, stretching- when his phone rang.
It was Moya.
"I've got you back on screen", she informed him, "And the North Beach has power again. Good work." There was a short pause, in which Cole heard keys clack again. "But there are still three more substation offline. I'll mark them on your GPS as I find them."
Cole shrugged, stiffling a yawn. "I guess I can do one more, then I'll turn in for the night."
"Well, if you are so willing then...", Moya continued, "There should a cell phone tower nearby. I need you to charge it back up."
Cell phone tower, huh? Cole grimaced. "Afraid I'm going to bail on you?"
"Without that tower, you'd fall off the grid. I can't allow that." Moya ended the call. Cole exhaled. Why the hell was he even doing this? It was clear she was just using him. Zeke's words came to mind, and as much as he hated feeding his friend's paranoia, there was something true about them.
With a heavy sigh, Cole continued his trek. He found a building to climb on, and from there made his way to the tower Moya marked for him. The total darkness engulfing it made him halt with a frown. Another powerless area. He grunted, then forced himself to move.
Without any sort of electricity around, his head began hurting very fast, and his vision turned blurry. He groaned and moved a bit slower, careful to not fall off the roof.
He hated feeling that weak. Better work swiftly to get the power back online.
Cole grunted when he hoisted himself atop a roof, and walked towards the tower. He was lucky he still had enough charge from the substation, so he wasn't depending on external sources, but he knew he had to recharge soon enough.
He shook his head to try to focus, then aimed his palm at the tower. He shot off several lightning bolts, just enough to switch the thing back on.
Once he did, he sat down with a huff, grunting when his head hurt even worse than before.
"Good", Moya sounded pleased. "Now you need to restore the electricity to this section of the Neon. I figured out the best way to get to the substation- but be careful. There are a lot of Reapers operating in the area."
Cole groaned and dropped his head back against the tower. "Those guys will slaughter me", he bit out, "I can barely see. And charging that tower drained me dry."
Moya clicked her tongue. "Stick to the high ground and avoid them." She paused, then added, "If you have to fight, look around for emergency generators. There are probably some scattered around the rooftops."
Cole gaped. "You're going to get me killed!" He hissed.
"Call me when you're in the sewers", Moya replied coldly, and cut the connection.
Great.
He should really just give up and go home- but he did get more powers from the last substation...If he wanted to take out Kessler and solve this entire mess, he needed more power. Power he'd only get when he played along.
Wonderful.
Cole dragged himself upright, glancing around. His eyes narrowed slightly on a generator happily gurgling away on the next roof over. He carefully moved to the edge of his own roof and eyed the ground. There were three Reapers. Cole scowled and headed over to a wire suspended between the roofs. He would move carefully, so nobody would see him.
Would be better for his health. He quickly balanced over the cable and latched onto the generator, to suppress the tell-tale arch of lightning that might give away his position.
A snarl from the side drew his attention before he could drain the generator. A Reaper wandered around the roof exit, and he paused, staring at the courier. Cole's eyes widened. If that guy would start shooting him, then everybody here would know where he was.
Without thinking, he lunged at the man. The Reaper made a startled snarl and tried to get his gun up, but Cole was faster. He knocked the gun out of the man's hand and tried to pin him to the ground with his own weight. The Reaper hissed and spat, winding to free himself. Cole didn't know what to do and slammed his hands over the other man's mouth. "Shut up" he hissed. The Reaper bucked up, starting to overpower the courier. Cole swore, feeling weakened from the lack of electricity. His body craved more juice, and it let him feel it. God damnit.
Cole tried to look around for anything to tie that idiot down until he had his fill from the generator, but he couldn't let him go without having anything to hold him down. He quickly decided to try knocking him out with his fist, when his body suddenly started pulling at his senses. His Radar Pulse went off without his say-so, scanning the area for the nearest source of electricity. The generator to the side glowed up- as did the Reaper he captured.
Cole blinked in confusion, but before he could make a conscious decision, his own body acted. The Reaper convulsed as lightning arched out of his head and chest where Cole's hands where. The courier flinched back, but didn't dare letting the guy go. The Reaper snarled and squirmed in pain, then a tremor raced through his body. His limbs were cramping together, then suddenly the Reaper went limp.
Cole hissed, carefully getting off the man. He didn't move. He prodded him with his toe. Nothing.
Then he understood, and he staggered back in horror. The man was dead, there was not a single spark of synaptic energy left in him, and he wasn't as desperate for juice anymore.
He just sucked out the man's life right out of his body, like some sort of Vampire.
Holy shit!
Cole shivered, realizing how potentially dangerous he could be to anybody around him if he was desperate for energy.
It was scary.
"Cole, stop wasting time", Moya's voice cut in sharply, making him flinch. "There is still a substation to be activated."
She ended the call before he could reply. Of course. He was just sifting through a life-changing discovery, and she didn't care and send him to risk his ass.
Well...at the very least he did have a possibility to reduce the number of enemies and recharge himself, he thought with a morbid sense of humor. Okay, no more Horror Movies with Zeke, he reminded himself as he dropped off the roof and carefully made his way across the next one. That move was reserved for either his worst enemies, or for absolute emergencies.
He paused, listening to the growl of an engine. With gas being rationed, hearing such large vehicles was rare. There could only be one group who would be driving around with cars when everything went to shit. The bad guys.
So Cole pressed himself flat to the roof and inched closer, peeking over the edge to see a massive truck standing on the train tracks. There were skulls painted all over it, and a turret installed on its truck bed.
Shit
Cole swallowed, trying to figure out how to get past that, and was about to head into a different direction to find another way, when a hollow crack made him halt.
He looked back, careful not to be seen, when his breath caught in his throat. An air conditionung unit came soaring through the air at a startling speed, crushed into the driver's cab, flattened it completely, before it flipped over from its own momentum and landed right on top of the turret to squash it and the Reaper operating it into a stain.
Holy Shit! Where did that come from?!
Cole's head snapped up when his senses shrieked 'danger' at him, and he saw a figure just jump off a roof and land on one roof three buildings further down the street. What was that?!
He gulped, not really keen on finding that out, so he waited until his pulse had calmed down. Only then he slowly got up and hopped off the roof. The turret truck was no longer an obstacle, but the conditioner did interest him. So he carefully pulled closer, cursing his blurry vision when he stood in front of it. The metal construction was heavily damaged, but he could figure out it had been torn from its anchor. And not only that, he could see something of a handprint pressed into the metal. The unit didn't just fall off the roof- it had been thrown with full force.
"What the Hell?!"
He shook his head, trying to clear it, before he decided that he needed the juice back online before he could try anything.
Cole headed further across the rooftops, realizing how agitated the Reapers were. They were distracted, and that helped him a lot.
Once, he cringed back again from the feeling of danger, when he witnessed a group of Reapers stand in an alley, shooting at something in the darkness. Cole couldn't see what they were shooting, only that a moment later something black shot from the shadows and split all five Reapers apart at the hips.
He gasped, eyes wide. Shit.
He waited again, before he carefully inched closer. The Reapers were a lost cause, and the alley was empty. He did find a crater in front of the dead end, however. A crater that looked surprisingly familiar to him. He had seen a similar one on Zeke's roof.
He picked Moya's number as he made his way back topside.
"Moya?"
"You aren't in the sewers yet", she started for a greeting, "What's the problem?"
"I don't know", Cole admitted as he swung over a large pipe and hurried across the roof.
"...And you called me just to tell me that? Listen, I am a patient woman-"
"I never said there's nothing", Cole snapped, "Listen- there is something wrong here."
Maybe it was his tone that got her attention. "In how far?"
"I just saw...something throw an AC unit at a truck, turning it to scrap. Then five Reapers got themselves split apart at the hip. My head's screaming at me to get away the entire time."
Moya was surprisingly silent. "Anything else?"
"No idea. I'm just going to get the substation online, then I get the Hell out of here-" He skidded to a stop, flopping flat on the roof at the sight of a whole bunch of Reapers standing in the middle of a parking lot. There was another turret truck with them- and one of the Reaper conduits.
Cole swore softly. "Hang on, bunch of guys."
He heard the Reapers snarl, backing off with their guns lifted. A moment later, another Reaper peeled from the shadows of an alleyway, stepping into the pale moonlight. Cole blinked, hoping to focus his eyes.
No. He didn't imagine this. The guy's arms were absurdly muscular. They were massively buffed up, with biceps easily larger than his thigh. But they weren't human. Not entirely. They seemed to have normal hands (just as large as his head, damnit), but the ulna was detached, connected only by the wrist and the elbow, and stood over with a spike-like protrusion. The skin looked gray.
The guy who had the arms, however, did not fit. He looked like a normal guy, a bit taller than Cole, skinnier, with a dark leather jacket or vest, faded jeans and a gray hoodie, with the hood up to cover his features.
The Reapers backed off some more, snarling. So this guy was not a Reaper himself.
Cole gasped when the conduit attacked the man, teleported next to him to create a shockwave. Unlike he did back when he encountered one of them, however, the hooded man didn't even bother acknowledging it. Instead, he whipped around and simply threw an uppercut into the Reaper's direction.
The man's upper body was literally turned to fine mist as the punch connected. The other Reapers immediately started shooting, along with the turret.
The hooded man just stood there as if it was rain, the bullets showing barely any effect, except for something splattering at the man's back. Cole swore, not knowing what to do. He heard Moya frantically calling for security footage in the background, but he couldn't tear his gaze away.
The man moved- not running, but rather jumping, clearing the distance between himself and the group of Reapers in a single bound. Crossing a distance of easily twenty yards as if it was a little skip. His fists slammed into the ground, hard enough to crater the asphalt and flip smaller cars up all over the parking lot. Even Cole felt the tremendous shockwave it caused, and windows still rattled two buildings further away from them.
The Reapers around the guy weren't so much flung back, as more completely obliterated, the shockwave easily turning their soft tissues to mush and snapping their bones like sticks.
One second later and they weren't people anymore, but rather a mass of splattered body parts and copious amounts of blood and gore.
Cole swore under his breath, backing off. He knew he had no chance against this guy. Then he suddenly froze as he witnessed the man's arms shiver. He clearly didn't imagine it and his blurry vision wasn't that blurry yet. He still sucked in air audibly with a hiss when the massive muscular arms vanished and were replaced by black twisted and spiky claws- with talons easily as long as machetes. The man knelt down and stabbed one claw into the ground, even as the turret kept firing on him. He took it as if he stood in a strong breeze however.
The ground buckled and warped.
Giant black spikes suddenly erupted right beneath the truck, impaling it and shredding the metal with a hollow shriek. Cole hissed in panic.
"Shit Moya!" He snapped in a hushed tone. "You got to send somebody- that guy- he's unstoppable!"
"What guy, Cole?!", Moya demanded, "Listen- just tell me who it is!"
"I don't know!" The courier snapped. "He's-" He froze mid-sentence. The hooded man's head had whipped up- and turned into his direction.
He saw a scowl on the man's face and realized that he knew he was there.
"Shit!" Cole gasped, jumping to his feet. "He's seen me!" He hurled his body to the side, rolling over his shoulder to change his direction and head towards another, lower roof. In mid-air, however, something hit him with the power of a freight train, sending him hurling against the roof. All he heard was the roar of his own blood and the static shriek of Moya's voice. Frantically, he tried to scramble back to his feet, only to see a pair of black boots in front of his face.
The man had knocked him right out of the air and now stood over him, sword-like claws flexed.
Cole's eyes widened when he saw the man's face in the pale moonlight.
It was the guy from Archer Square.