The building had burned down, and it wasn't my fault.
Now, normally, I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. In my line of work, I have to be. Facing down the biggest, nastiest, slimiest, most murder-happy denizens of Supernatural Chicago isn't a job for the faint of heart. I've seen werewolves, weregoats, trolls, fairies, Faeries, Archangels, demons, Fallen, even poo-flinging bat-monkey demons from Hell.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for what I was getting myself into.
It was your typical Summer day in Chicago; hot and humid to the point it felt like I was breathing in more water than air. I was mainly doing my rounds, you know, usual Wizard stuff, like casting hexes, wearing pointy hats, and being more broke than a chair after a bar-fight, when I got a call. The phone in my office looked like it was from the baby boomer days, but due to my "Murphyonic Field" as Butters liked to call it, it was the only one I could have that didn't explode. I picked it up, and a high-pitched, yet surprisingly commanding voice echoed from the ancient Earpiece.
"Dresden, we have a problem." Murphy, head of Chicago Special Investigations, said from the other side.
I nodded, making a short list of what exactly could have gone horribly wrong this week. "Whaddaya need, Murph?" I asked, getting right to the point.
"3215 South Court." She said, and she hung up the phone, the dial tone playing before I had the chance to blurt out a last response.
I stood a moment longer, before hanging up the landline and, quickly grabbing my staff and trench coat, left my office building, heading towards my...'car'.
The Blue Beetle, as I had dubbed it, was a pile of junk. Even it's name didn't apply anymore, as my mechanic, Mack, had to use parts from nearly a dozen different bugs of varying makes and colors to repair the damage it got consistently. The sunroof had been ripped off by a Terminator Zombie and replaced with a white roof, the engine cover had been blasted off by an angry necromancer and replaced white, the driver's side door had been melted to slag and replaced with a grey-colored one, and the amount of scratches, dents, and rust spots on it was mind-boggling. Half the time, it didn't even start up.
It was a pile of junk, but it was my pile of junk, damnit.
I got in and turned the key in the ignition, listening to the car sputter to life, and, after a few coughs and cackles, was off, driving as fast as I could, a light-speed 30 miles and hour, down the road.
...
And now, here we are.
We were in the seedier side of Chicago, where there used to be a lot of industry and factories. Now a days, it mostly served as a home to low-income residents, drug dealers, supernatural nasties, and seedy institutions. Word on the grape-vine was that Chicago PD had a whale of a time trying to police the area.
I got out of the beetle and gaped at what I saw. The building Murph had directed me to had...seen better days. In that most of it was rubble. The building had collapsed, and now next to nothing remained but the stone and wood used to build it. According to a sign laying at least 30 feet from the wreckage, it had used to be 'The Burnin' Love'. Probably a bar.
One of the officers on site turned looked at me, recognition crossing her face, and, before long, she started walking towards me. Karrin Murphy was a petite blonde, 5-foot nothing and maybe 130-pounds soaking wet. She had blonde hair currently tied back in a short ponytail, and her piercing blue eyes were framed by a surprisingly gentle face.
"Dresden." She asked, striding up to me and shaking my hand.
"What do we have, Murph? Trolls? Warlocks? Were-goats?" I asked, giving her my best game-winning smile.
Needless to say, she was unfazed.
"Teenagers." she replied flatly, turning on her heel and walking towards one of the nearby ambulances. In front of it sat a squat man in business casual attire and a vest; probably the bar-tender. Murphy jerked her head in his direction and arched an eyebrow. Go on. her look said.
I nodded in return and turned back to the man, examining him. He had a black eye, and his slicked-back hair was tussled and mussed. He looked at me with a haunted look in his eye. "A-are you the investigator?" he asked, looking around himself. "I-is she here?"
Hell's bells, this guy looks like he just came back from a war-zone. I thought to myself, noting his shaking hands and twitchy demeanor.
"Is who here?" I asked gently, taking out my note-pad. "Tell me everything you remember. Every detail helps."
The man nodded, and took a deep breath, beginning his story. "I...honestly don't know how to explain it, without sounding nuts. It was just a regular ol' day. I was cleaning some glasses making some drink...when this woman comes in. She had this long, blonde hair, and, hear me out here...purple eyes. Couldn't have been more than 18. She was dressed pretty weird, with tall boots, short shorts, and big..."
"I get it." I interrupted, not wanting to see where this guy was going with this. "What happened after that?"
He nodded, and seemed to re-focus. "Alright..she sat on the bar, and asked for something called a 'Strawberry Sunrise'. I had no idea what that was, but I decided to try out anyways. She showed me this picture of another woman; long, black hair, a white mask, red coat...and she asked me if I knew where she was. I told her no, but told her I might know a guy. She looked like she was gonna listen...when this guy, Mike, comes up to her and asks her out. Poor ol' Mike never had any luck with the ladies, and he took the rejection pretty hard. He tried to grab some of her...bits, and what happened after that, it's just a blur, man!"
He looked over and stared sadly at the ruins of his bar. "Mike was on his ass before he knew it. He was drunk, and got pissed, so he and a few of his mates tried to gang up on her. I was ready to call the bouncer, when she just...beat them. All of them. Without breaking a sweat."
He pointed to one of the nearby ambulances, where a guy who looked like he had taken a liking to the wrong end of a truck pushing 70 on a highway was being loaded by trolley into the ambulance bed. If I was going to be perfectly honest with myself, the poor guy's chances didn't look good.
"That's Mike." the bartender said, shivering.
I nodded, writing it all down. "That doesn't explain the building." I asked, looking at it.
The bartender nodded, thinking back. "Her gloves...I think that's what they were, shot missiles. Like, real, bona-fide rockets. They hit one of the support beams and caught fire. Next thing I knew, everything was ablaze."
I nodded, and pocketed the notebook. "Thank you for your time, sir." I said, pocketing the notebook and walking back, wondering just what the hell I was dealing with.
...
Yang wandered the streets of Chicago, looking around her at the building. "Woah. This place looks old." She exclaimed, looking at the brick-and-mortar buildings. She had no idea where she was, or how to get home. She was going around Vale, asking people for information about her...personal mission, when there was this big light, and suddenly, she was here, in this strange world, outside a bar. Shrugging her shoulders, she decided to press on...well, until that jerk had made a move on her. Too bad the bar had burned down.
She stopped on the street, gently grabbing a man's shoulder. "Excuse me, sir, but do you know where I am?" she asked, looking innocently at the man.
He simply looked at her incredulously. "Don't you know? You're in Chicago."
"Chicago? Where's that?" Yang replied, searching her head for anything she had learned during one of Professor Oobleck's Geography classes.
The man yanked his shoulder away, staring at her for a moment before turning away, muttering under his breath, "Damn crazies."
Confused, Yang continued to wander, turning down several narrow alleys, until she turned down one, looking upon something she didn't expect to see. In the alley, a woman slouched against the wall, crying and babbling gibberish, while a man stood over her. He was tall and thin, and he had what looked like claws instead of finger nails. He began leaning down towards the woman, when Yang spoke up:
"Hey!" She shouted, walking down the alley. "Leave her alone!"
The man stopped and stood up, turning towards her, and it was then that Yang saw that this was not a man. He had a strong, elongated jaw, like that of a lizard, instead of a human face. Scales covered certain patches on his forearms and face, and his eyes were reptilian slits.
He chuckled, and he grinned as much as he could with his jaw. "Ahh...fresh meat." He said, chuckling. "And tell me, little morsel, what will you do to stop me?"
"I'll fight you!" Yang responded, unflinching. The lizard-guy stared at her for a moment, before he broke out into a full-belly laugh.
"Oh, how cute!" he said after a while, taking a step towards Yang. "Have at it, then!"
Yang smiled, and responded, in a cocky sing-song "I thought you'd never ask."
The man-lizard moved towards her. He was fast...but Yang was faster. She side-stepped a clawed uppercut, and launched several quick strikes into the man's ribs before giving him a kick in the stomach. She could hear several sharp cracks, followed by howls of pain each time she punched, and then her kick sent the creature flying into a wall, breaking it. A few seconds later, the thing stood up, limping out of the dust. He was battered and bruised, bleeding from multiple places, and his arms looked like they were the next best thing to useless, but still he stood up. He tried to growl some words at her, but because of the blood filling his lungs, it came out sounded more like "Bllaalrgfgflaiglf."
She smiled, and, giving a little wink, drew her arm back, and launched a missile at the lizard-thing. It exploded dead center on his chest, and the guy disappeared in a small mushroom cloud.
...
I honestly didn't even know where to start with this case. Chicago was a big city, even by modern standards. Searching every nook and cranny would take years, and there was no guarantee I would be able to find who I was looking for, and it's not like I could look through security cameras, for hopefully obvious reasons. So, I decided to take a different approach. One that would, hopefully, let me solve this case relatively quickly.
I sped back to the city, pushing the beetle as fast as I could, stopping by a Pizza Hut, before eventually coming up outside of my apartment building. I currently lived in a old apartment building rented out by a kindly old lady, particularly the sub-basement. I stamped my boots on the doormat and entered my apartment. It was small, but still homey. In one corner was a kitchen consisting of a single sink and table, and on the other end was a fire-place. In front of the fire place was a conglomerate of rugs, a couch, and my love-seat.
I strode forward, waving my hand as I passed some candles. "Flickum Bicus." I muttered, exerting a small effort of will. The candles flicked to life, lighting up the interior of the modest apartment. As custom, my part-bobcat part cheetah cat, Mister, bounded forward, throwing his body into my legs and nearly knocking me over. Despite being old for his breed, he still acted like a particularly aloof kitten, and made no secret of being the boss. I knelt down and scratched him behind the ears and under the chin, before stepping over to the fire place and picking up one of the carpets. Under it was an old trap door, and I picked it up, climbing down the stairs that led to my lab.
The lab was located in what I would guess would be the sub-sub basement, and was where I did all my cool wizarding stuff. You know, summoning demons, brewing potions, and feeding Spirits of Knowledge porn.
The last one makes sense in context, I swear.
Anyway, there were tables lining the room, with an island in the middle creating just enough space to walk through. On one end, the room widened out, and etched in chalk on the concrete was a pentagram inside a circle, used to summon up creatures from the Nevernever. Lined with salt and iron, the circle served to contain the creatures and get information from them. Salt to bleed their power, iron to hurt them. It worked against most supernatural creatures.
For now, though, I was here for none of that. I walked over to one corner, where a skull carved with dozens of runes sat, the two orange motes that it had for eyes cast downwards, towards a Playboy magazine.
"Ohh yeah babe, take it off..." the skull muttered to itself, giving a little perverted cackle. You see, Bob was a spirit of Knowledge. For him, Knowledge was the only constant, the only reality. Thus, everything he saw in his 'imagination' was real. Put two and two together, and, well, now you know why Bob likes porn so much. For him, it was real.
"Bob." I said, walking over to his table. "I need your help with something important."
Bob looked up a moment, the motes of light growing brighter. "Heya, Harry." he said, with a little Texas cowboy accent. "What can ahh do yer fer?"
"Information." I said, taking out my notes. "I'm looking for any information regarding a person. Anything the Nevernever knows, and then some."
"What's in it for me?" Bob asked, looking up at me, bobbing up and down slightly. (heh.)
I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. "No, Bob, I'm not letting you out of your skull. Even for a night."
"Aww, c'mon, Harry, I'll behave!"
"Bob, the last time I let you out of the skull, you caused an entire college fraternity to engage in a super-orgy."
"Hey, it's not like they didn't enjoy it."
"That's completely besides the point."
Bob gave a grunt and sighed...well, as much as an intangible spirit inhabiting a skull can sigh, at any rate. "Fine. I'll take some more Playboys for payment, if that's the case."
"Deal. Bob, I give you permission to go out and gather information for this specific purpose. Upon completion, you are to return to your skull. You are looking for information regarding a young female with long, blonde hair, purple eyes, and... revealing clothing."
The glow left the skull, and the spirit left, flying up the hatch and out a window.
I waited a moment, before going out towards the table. I'm not the kind of guy to put all my eggs in one basket, and so, I had another plan to find this chick. And, after a little bit of chanting and an effort of will, my back-up materialized in front of me. Toot-toot, Commander of the Za Lord's Guard, was a small Fae, about 16 inches tall, with a puff of purple mad-scientist hair held down by a Sprite bottle cap. An orange box cutter hung at his back, strapped there by a rubber band.
"What does the Za-Lord request of me today?" Toot-toot said, giving a sweeping bow. Ever since I had started feeding the Faeries pizza, they had given me the title of 'Za Lord' and sworn themselves to my service.
Apparently, I'm a pretty likable guy.
"Toot, I need you to help me. Gather up some of your followers and look for a woman with long, blonde hair, purple eyes, and who looks out of place. You'll know her if you see her. Do this for me, and I'll give you an entire pizza."
Toot's eyes lit up, and he flickered into the air, throwing up a quick salute. "It shall be done, Za-Lord!" he said, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Hopefully, they'll be back before long. I thought to myself inwardly, as I went back up and sat in my love seat, cracking open a good book while I waited for more information.
...
Yang stood up after kicking the lizard-guy, breathing out a sigh of relief and relaxing her arms, Ember Celica retracting into their bracelet form. The fight hadn't been hard, but for some reason, she felt beat. Perhaps it was all the walking?
Yeah, that was probably it.
She turned around, prepared to ask the business-woman if she was all right, when she realized that the business woman had...disappeared. Yang looked around for anywhere she could have hidden, but nothing came up.
Man, this world just keeps getting weirder and weirder. She thought, turning and walking back the way she had came.
The more Yang thought about it, the fewer things made sense. The world around her not only looked different, but it felt different. It wasn't something she could describe, not really. But this world felt darker, more depressed than Vale. The buildings reminded her of her trip to Mountain Glenn, and the people around her had pretty weird fashion sense. More than a few times, she had caught people stealing incredulous glances at her clothes. Yang wasn't the type of person who felt self-conscious, but the longer she stayed on the streets, the more she noticed people staring, and it made her feel out-of-place.
As Yang continued to ponder her current situation, outside forces had already taken note of her presence.
Yang was in another alley, honest-to-goodness lost...when a man stepped out in front of her. He wore a long, black sweater that went up his neck and down his arms, with black dress slacks and a fedora. His plain face was serious as he stepped out in front of her, and Yang took a step back, only for her to hit another man, this one larger, and dressed similarly. Yang turned and backed up in the middle of the two men, while more people dressed in black turtlenecks arrived, until she was surrounded on each side by six people.
She looked around, examining her odds, when one of the men lunged forward. He attempted to grab her, but she quickly dodged, throwing a punch into the man's chest and sending him flying back. A few more stepped up, wielding electric batons. They swung at her, and Yang dodged both, angling her body away. She took her stance, and, one foot forward, launched a devastating uppercut into one man's chin, snapping his head back, with a loud *CRACK*. He crumpled into a heap on the floor, while the other one was comparatively lucky; he got a kick to the torso, and was launched back to the crowd, blood spurting from his mouth as several organs were crushed.
Yang smiled and looked at the men in front of her. "Who's next?" she said, grinning.
Yang felt an iron grip on the back of her head, and felt herself picked up bodily and thrown. Her head landed with a muted thunk as she collided with a dumpster. Her vision blurred for a few seconds, until she blinked the reflex tears away...and noticed, in the grip of the one who had thrown her, a few locks of golden hair.
Her hair.
Rage filled Yang as she stood back up, her violet eyes now red-colored, as she activated her Semblance. The earth began to shake lightly, and fire erupted from cracks in the pavement. She looked at the Sweater-wearing fiends, and spoke with a voice that dripped of hate.
"You...bastards...touched my hair." she growled, clashing Ember Celica together, the shockwave cracking the pavement around her. "Prepare to die."
...