Hello again! This time sooner than before. I wanna try and keep this pace up.

Thanks to Random Chick for the review. I really appreciate your words.


"This laser stuff is just super cool Reg", Delsin was on his way back to the neon sign from which the other Conduit had been shooting at him a little bit earlier. Reggie was right that it was a good idea to check the place out and see if he could find something. A clue to find out if this had been Fetch or the third Conduit. They hadn't heard anything about them so far. Maybe they were hiding far away from everyone. For now though Delsin's attention was with this place and the new powers he could grab. "Once I got that, with the smoke powers I already have.. Augustine will be surprised for sure."

"Keep it cool will you? We still need to find the Conduit again and we still don't know if it's gonna work anyway."

"I know, I know", he was hoping to be able to test it out soon. To see if he could get more powers or not. Though 'soon' might be relative since he didn't know where to look. The billboard was a good start at least because the second he arrived there he could see the Conduit he had chased was living here. Which meant they would come back eventually.

Only that Delsin wasn't keen on waiting for that to happen.

He wanted to find the Conduit as soon as possible. Not only because of his curiosity about what the powers could do and if he could actually get them by nothing more than shaking the Conduits hand. But also, and that was even more important to him, because it meant he was getting closer to Augustine. To facing her, being able to stand a chance against her. Getting her powers and thus being able to save his friends.

His eyes took in his surroundings. This place.. it was not what he had expected. As a normal person walking down the street you wouldn't expect anyone to live up here. This was an almost perfect hideout. Minus the fact that it wasn't save from rainfall and probably rather cold during the nights. "Okay.. well, this is definitely Fetch unless the second escaped Conduit is female as well and has a preference for messages no one understands."

"Definitely female?"

"Reg, if you could see this you would understand. This is the girliest sniper nest of all time", he tried not to laugh when he saw the shoes and the makeup standing in one corner of this.. 'home'. Why did women need all that stuff? Sure, he appreciated it when women dressed up and all that but sometimes he didn't get it. Mostly because of the fact that some things women did seemed like torture. Like walking in high heels all day. That couldn't be fun. There wasn't time to think about it though. Delsin needed to find Fetch without losing too much time.

A part of him felt like that had happen already. He had missed several days after Augustine had been in Salmon Bay and now he had to chase down Fetch and the other Conduit.

"What do you mean by 'girliest'? Don't tell me everything is pink?"

"Bingo, well, at least whatever in here can be pink is", he looked around. "It's all girl stuff you know.. and there's a name written or I should rather say burned on the wall with a girly handwriting."

Reggie interrupted his brother. "Girly handwriting?" From what Delsin was telling him over the phone this was supposedly every little girl's dream. With pink walls, fluffy unicorns and glitter. Besides, only because all the things that were there were pink and the handwriting was pretty, didn't mean it was necessarily a woman. Men could enjoy the color too. And men could have feminine handwriting as well.

"It's a pretty handwriting.. not like yours", he could hear Reggie sighing on the other side of the phone. "I'm gonna send you some pictures so you see what I mean", he informed his brother and without waiting for an answer he began to take pictures. Starting with the name on the wall because that was the strangest thing to Delsin. With all the 'decoration' to make this place a little nicer, writing a name on the wall seemed out of place. Whoever this was had to be important to Fetch.

"Brent.. mhm, whoever that's supposed to be. I can't really get far with nothing more but a name", and there was the next picture. Were that shoes? Why did Delsin take pictures of shoes? Better not to ask questions about that, but he had to acknowledge that boots like those were usually worn by women. And another picture - how many did his brother intend to send him? From 'furniture' on top of that. "Seriously? We have a serial killer who's reading 'Jane Eyre'?"

"Each their own", he looked around some more. What else could he take a picture of? The flowers in the traffic cones? No, too boring. That's when something caught his interest and Delsin couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. Oh yes, that would be good.

When the picture appeared on his phone Reggie didn't know what to say for a second. Did Delsin seriously sent him a picture of underwear? "Okay, those definitely.. very likely belong to a woman."

"Pff, you're an expert for that huh?" Oh how Delsin loved to make his brother uncomfortable. Even though he was older he seemed to be three steps behind Delsin when it came to women. The fact that a few items of nice underwear could get him so nervous was, in a way, hilarious. Delsin could remember a few occasions where Reggie was out with a woman he had met through work or Betty had introduced to him - she seemed pretty eager to find him woman at one point. Probably because she thought of both, Delsin and Reggie, as her family and couldn't wait for a wedding and babies. Reggie always seemed to be more at ease once he was home again. Apparently not being interested in dating. Maybe that was partly Delsin's fault. Having to look out for your little brother and work at the same time didn't leave much time for a private life. Even now Reggie was more keen on keeping Delsin out of trouble than anything else. Making a mental note to do something about that once they were back home, Delsin concentrated on the task ahead.

"Is there.. anything else?"

"Let's see", he walked to the other end of the sign and looked around: buildings, streets, message made from light, tree - wait. A message made from light? "Yes, there is something interesting", he raised his phone and tried to connect the picture. Just like up here on the neon sign, parts of a puzzle were drawn on the rooftop of the next building and on the street a little further away. Seeing only one piece of it wouldn't make sense to anyone. From an artistic point of view this was a masterpiece.

"Interesting is the right word for that. Maybe I can get a match on the face, though this would be more luck than anything else. It's a pretty far fetched thought", Reggie, who had gotten a picture of the puzzle or the face Delsin had found just now, began to search for some information using the picture.

"Do you know what I just remembered?"

"What is it?"

"Think about it for a second: smoke and lasers.. I could do light shows in our living room."

"Guess that's a reasonable use for superpowers", the older one laughed before concentrating on the search for someone matching the picture and the name again.

"You need to have fun once in awhile. Of course, I'm gonna test that on Augustine first. First the smoke and then the laser", he made a few noises which could be associated with firing a gun. He could perfectly imagine how it would look. The shocked and surprised look when he would stand in front of Augustine while setting her world on fire. Oh he couldn't wait for that. She would be more than surprised. Especially because he would be there in the first place since she hadn't believed him when he told her that he was a Conduit. By now Delsin was pretty sure she would know. Alone because of his sign on the Space Needle. The surprise might be a little smaller than he hoped in the first place.

"Got a match for the picture", Reggie pulled his brother out of his thoughts. "His name is 'Brent Walker', he was arrested for the possession of drugs six years ago. But listen to this: two months later he was found in an alley. Dead. Based on the file the cause of death was a 'single punctuation wound of unknown origin'", he read. "I'm gonna send you the file along with the place where his body was found." He couldn't believe this actually worked.

Delsin began to wonder about that. Had this guy, Brent Walker, been killed because he had drugs or was it for another reason? What was clear was that Brent meant something to Fetch. She went and killed drug dealers, he had been arrested because he had some. It felt like she was blaming them for his death and now went to get revenge.

"So Fetch doesn't like drug dealers."

"Looks like it."

"Yana was right, wasn't she?", Delsin thought out loud as he made his way to the place Brent had been found. "You said it earlier as well, that this is hunt or something. Those guys were drug dealers. The police isn't allowed to look into this and the D.U.P. makes it look like she's killing off random people. That everyone in this city could be a target."

"I have to admit that I might've been on the wrong track earlier. From what I have heard until now this really seems like the D.U.P. wants to scare the people though they're supposed to do the opposite of that", it made him thoughtful. It didn't change anything about the fact that people were being murdered here, people who - under different circumstances - would've been sitting in prison for what they were doing. Because that was the right thing. Because that was what his consciousness as a cop told him and he couldn't just accept the fact that someone was murdering people who should be in jail.

If it was indeed Fetch who did this, Reggie had the feeling he would get into trouble with Delsin later on.

There was something, he couldn't tell what, but he knew that the moment Delsin would meet Fetch things would escalate. Delsin had a different view on things. Based on the past conversations he didn't seem to be bothered a lot by the fact Fetch was killing people.

It was a bit like back home. Delsin would cause trouble and Reggie would scold him. Delsin would never see his brothers point during the talks they had afterwards. A part of Reggie could understand it. Delsin was rebellious, he wanted to test out his boundaries. He didn't care that his brother was a cop and had to do something about it. He couldn't just let Delsin do as he pleased.

It wouldn't be any different in this case. Delsin would defend his and Fetch's actions, while Reggie would try to make them understand his point of view. He was already dreading that moment.

~ooo~

The place of Brent's murder was close to a theater. To Delsin's dismay there were quite a few drug dealers lurking around the place and Reggie reminded him - in his cop way - that it was everyone's responsibility to do something when they watched a crime. Of course without getting in danger themselves. Being a Conduit and facing a few armed guys? Nope, no danger on Delsin's end here. Plus he enjoyed fighting with his powers and trying out new things.

Reggie thanked his brother. Especially since he took the dealers out by pinning them to the ground with some smoke. The police would take care of the rest. Reggie had already informed someone about it.

Now Delsin had enough time to look around. There was a gate that kept people from entering what appeared to be a small hallway leading somewhere. Maybe a storage of some kind. Though it felt weird to have such an 'open' storage down here. This might very well be a back entrance to the building itself but if that was indeed the case.. wasn't it in use? It seemed strange. Shaking his thoughts away Delsin used his abilities to move through the bars and inspect what was behind them.

From the first impression the room he was about to enter should have been dark. To his surprise there was a small shimmer of light illuminating what was ahead. Entering what looked like to be a vault, based on the architecture inside, he noticed that the name 'Brent' was written all over the place. It was the same handwriting as on the billboard earlier. Though this time the whole place was covered. Looking around closely he noticed that the name formed into a spiral, eventually leading to a small altar of some kind.

There were pictures and candles everywhere. This was a private little memorial place. There was no way someone else would come in here so the person who set this up, was comfortable with leaving it here.

Most of the candles were lit. If Reggie would see it he would go into a long rant about how to not leave candles burning when you're not there. Delsin didn't bother too much though he could relate to that. The burning candles were a sign that the Conduit came here a lot. Maybe they had been here before the laser attack on him. He doubted they would come back any time soon. It seemed they were more eager to run away from him and maybe, there was a chance for that, they had seen him check out the neon sign and coming here as well.

As he went to get a closer look at the pictures he noticed that there were two people on some of them:

a woman with pink hair and a man with blue hair.

Based on what he had seen so far the woman was the one to attack him. And the man had to be Brent. They seemed close. Delsin could see that just from looking at the pictures. Not as in being a couple but being a family. Siblings for sure. It made Delsin wonder what had happen to Brent and thus to Fetch.

If she had been in Curdun Cay before the truck crashed in Salmon Bay, there was no way for her to do all this. Place candles and pictures. Either way she did it after she escaped or all of this had been here before without anyone ever noticing it. He doubted it. He had been out for a while after Augustine attacked him. This was definitely new.

"I have to say, speedy-gone-crazy is one hell of a tagger. You should see this, it's amazing."

"It's also amazing that you forget she's a murderer."

"Let's forget that for a bit, will you?", Delsin decided to ignore his brother and began to take pictures of the place. Starting with the altar. He had to admit it was touching to see this. This was something you'd do for a loved one. They probably had been very close before he died. He couldn't imagine. No, actually he could. His thoughts drifted to his parents. It had been a long time since they had passed but there were moments where a wave of emotions rushed towards him, making him go back to that dreadful day.

Reggie pulled Delsin from his thoughts without knowing what was going on. "The guy on the picture is definitely Brent Walker. No mistake here."

"Would've never guessed that with his name all over the place."

"Is that sarcasm I hear?"

"Maybe", Delsin took a few more pictures. That did include the name spiral. "See. Great tagger and no mistake about this being Brent. Thanks for your confirmation though", he was sure his smile was audible in his voice. Reggie didn't say anything and so Delsin continued to explore only to find something that was unsettling him. Right to the left from where he had entered he now spotted a chair and a table. What through him off guard was a board leaning against the wall behind the table.

There was a picture on it. Drawn with this strange neon power. It was Brent, sitting on a chair as if he was sitting at the same table with Fetch. Probably. Delsin could clearly imagine a real person sitting on the free chair. Plus, there was a food bag on the table indicating that someone would actually use this place to eat. Which meant that neon-Brent was a silent company during those meals. What he also spotted was a note on the wall.

RIP Brent, along with a tally counting 23.

As he took a picture for his brother he wondered what the number meant exactly.

"What on earth.. this is crazy", Reggie couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"You tell me. I'm standing right in front of neon-Brent and it looks like our Conduit is ordering take-out, comes here and talks about what they experienced during the day while having food." It sounded even crazier when he said it out loud. This place however was frequented a lot. The empty food bag, the lit candles. He had come to that realization earlier but now it was even more prominent. There was also something else that made him think so:

hidden behind a few curtains was a makeshift bed made from some blankets and a sleeping bag.

Comparing this to the other place, which had more 'furniture' to make it look like a nice place to stay, this was definitely a home.

"Olaf's has a location on the Alaskan Way. They supposedly have one of the biggest neon signs of the city."

Looking back to the table Delsin noticed the name on the take-away bag. He hadn't paid attention to that earlier and was glad his brother did so because that meant he had a new place to go. "Guess that's my next destination to check out."

~ooo~

"Hey, what about breakfast", Sarah was standing near the cash register with a rather bored look on her face. The store had been open for 3 hours and the customers Yana had attended to, had just left. "You got some time for that right?"

"Mhm, yes", Yana nodded. "I wanted to work through some of the letters we got during the last weeks. Breakfast would work perfect with that."

"Great", Sarah clapped her hands together. "If that's the case I'm gonna go to the bakery and get us something." That said, Sarah walked back towards the staff room to grab her wallet before she waved Yana goodbye and left the store.

Yana's blue eyes followed her colleague until she wasn't able to see her anymore, thus turning her attention towards the letters. They had been lying on the desk for a while now. Somehow no one here liked to do the paperwork but given that there was not much to do, Yana found it a good opportunity to take care of the mail. She opened those which were still closed, sorting bills and junk mails into different stacks. There was nothing important here. The junk mails went straight to the trash and the bills were sorted and put to the side for her boss to sign.

There were a few papers she could file right away without anyone signing them. Step by step the desk began to look like a desk again. No unnecessary papers or anything that clustered the place. It felt good.

As she put a binder back into one of the shelves that was placed in the small hallway between the staff room and the shop itself, she heard the doorbell at the entrance. Even though there was basically just a door frame between her and the shop she couldn't actually see the showroom. Since it couldn't be Sarah, she had been gone for about 15 minutes and the way to the bakery was longer than that, Yana was certain it was a customer.

"I'll be there in a second!"

She tried to quickly put everything away before walking back into the main room of the shop. Her eyes roaming from one point to the next without finding anyone around. Had she imagined the doorbell? Or maybe someone opened the door but then decided to not step inside because they realized they were at the wrong place. Yana was ready to turn around and head back to the office when she spotted someone standing in front of a rack that contained romper suits.

For a short moment Yana felt as if her heart stopped.

This couldn't be real.

"Hello Yana."

She made two steps back.

"... Augustine..?!"