21st, Monday, 12:05 AM.
Dune stepped into the carriage at the front of the train.
He felt excited, he wasn't sure he could do it exactly like he was supposed to. He was having far too much fun, he wouldn't be able to help himself.
The bathroom door opened and an old man in a conductor's uniform stepped out and died. Dune lowered the gun to the ground and laughed. He had done it now, Swallow was going to be so upset.
But if she was going to be mad anyway he might as well enjoy himself.
He stepped over the body and towards the conductor's cabin door, it was unlocked so he let himself in. There was a man standing near a open door, a little balcony with a waist high safety fence stopped him from falling out onto the tracks.
The mans clothes were being ruffled about, the air in the cabin was being sucked out the room into the dark and Dune could barely hear anything else, he giggled again.
The man turned around, somehow hearing the noise over the wind and watched him curiously. He was wearing a staff uniform, not the same as the conductors uniform Dune wore, he must have been an assistant.
"Who are you?" The assistant asked him, loud enough to be heard over the wind. "Why are you wearing a conductors uniform? I've met both conductors and you are neither."
Dune giggled again, he was barely holding on it was just so funny. The assistant had a name tag on, 'Felix' was written across the tag in neat black letters.
"I killed the conductor and stole his uniform," Dune said with mirth. "I got the other one in the hall too! Were taking over the train, sorry!"
He didn't sound sorry at all, and he certainty didn't feel sorry.
"What was the first conductor's name?" Felix asked. His tone was flat now, but still unafraid.
"His name was Tony!" Dune laughed loudly, unable to hold back anymore. "Did you know him?"
"He was my mentor," Felix said. Dune laughed, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
He was still laughing when Felix ground his arm into the train tracks, leaving nothing but a bloody stump.
Dune only stopped laughing when he no longer had a face to laugh with.
21st, Monday, 12:05 AM.
Climax kicked the carriage door open and it slammed into the wall it was attached to.
The door sprung back towards him but he had already stepped into the room, he pushed it away from him and stepped further inside. There were people talking, drinking and eating along the tables that lined the walls of the carriage.
"Hello!" Climax yelled, lifting his massive wrench up and smashing it through the side of the train showering everyone with debris.
"This is now a hostage situation," Swallow said calmly, stepping up beside him. She was holding a big bag in front of her. "Please place all of your jewelry, valuables, and money into the bag."
People were already running away from them to the next cabin, Swallow sighed. Aural stepped next to her and kicked the leg out from under a man that had tried to grab her instead.
She twisted his arm over his shoulder and smashed him into the floor, he didn't move, knocked unconscious.
"Thanks," Swallow said Aural nodded. She raised her voice and continued, "Like I was saying, please remain calm, hand over your valuables and everybody will remain unhurt."
Some of the people closest started to hand her things after that, but most just ran away.
21st, Monday, 12:05 AM.
Urchin looked through the window of the carriage door in front of him. There were a lot of people in the carriage, and he could see Dean and Chris sitting at a table. Two hotties in short dresses were chatting them up, they must have had some pretty good game to pull that one off.
The door at the opposite end of the carriage opened and people ran out screaming, they stumbled into each other in their rush to get to the next carriage. I moved to the left but kept an eye through the door as people clawed their way past me, hysterically yelling and carrying on.
I could see a tall blonde guy in blue overalls, at the other end of the next cabin. Strangely enough he was holding a giant wrench against his shoulder. To the right of him stood a blonde chick with an eye-patch, a ribbon tied around her neck and a red sleeveless shirt and jeans.
On his left, the last woman had long dark hair and wore a black dress. There was a matching rose made of lace, stitched onto one of the straps of her dress. None of them wore a mask. They were just standing there, calmly holding out a bag while the rest of the cabin went banana's.
The people closest to them started dumping things into the bags.
Robbing a train, nice. I knew who these three were from my recent cape research, but I hadn't ever seen them in the flesh before today. They were from left to right Aural, Climax, and then Swallow, but they weren't always in that order, heh.
These three were villains, of the team called Chorus, they had been around for a couple of years now, although Swallow had only joined this year. They never bothered to hide there identities and they worked out of a hideout somewhere in the city that nobody had managed to locate.
The two women that were standing next to Dean had turned to face the door and I realized, from the reflection in the window, that they were both wearing masks with a 'P' on the front. Members of the Protectorate, Battery and Miss Militia, most likely. Two of the three female members of the Protectorate in Brockton bay.
Nobody had ever seen Dragon out of a suit, so it probably wasn't her. Although, it was possible that either of these two were from out of town. Could there be more members of the Protectorate here, in different carriages?
Was Armsmaster lurking just out of sight in a little black dress, ready to shove his halberd up my ass?
Dean and Chris had dragged out two suitcases from underneath the table and started changing clothes. They were clearly prepared for a fight, or at least prepared to prepare for a fight.
Chris started pulling out pieces of red armor, he dropped a pair of matching pistols onto the table while he started strapping them on. Well there was my confirmation, Chris was Kid Win.
There was no way that the members of Chorus were the Rail Tracer. I had considered every gang in the city already when I was investigating, they didn't fit at all. Chorus had three capes and a handful of normies on their team. They maimed and beat people, but they had never killed, sticking to robberies and ransoms.
This damn train was getting awfully crowded. Dean was apparently friends with Kid Win. I doubted that Kid Win would happily befriend a killer. So either Dean wasn't the Rail Tracer, or he was the Rail Tracer but Kid Win didn't know he was.
If he wasn't the killer who was? Why was he on the train at all? Nobody else I had investigated should be on the train. This was bullshit. It didn't make any sense.
The door behind Chorus opened slowly and a man almost completely covered in blood stepped through the door. He was too far away for me to be able to make out his face from under all of the blood.
He was dragging a body with him, it was missing an arm up to the shoulder and it's face was completely gone, just a gory mess of blood and bone.
He tossed it clear down the aisle and the members of Chorus jumped out of the way as it passed. Super Strength, I noted. The body hit the ground and slid to a stop in the middle of the carriage.
Who the hell was this asshole?
The man had auburn hair and was wearing what used to be a white uniform. A member of the staff? I'd seen him somewhere before, but I couldn't place the guy. Fuck it, the guy was giving off obvious serial killer vibes.
I opened the door loudly and then walked into carriage. All of the heroes turned around and looked at me in shock. I waved as I approached.
"Dibs on the Rail Tracer," I said as I strode up the aisle towards them. Miss Militia had a gun pointed at me. "My paycheck is on the line here."
The heroes stepped backward as I approached and they moved towards the walls of the train. I continued unhurriedly, affecting a facade of indifference.
On the inside, I was terrified Miss Militia was about to pop a cap in my ass. I stopped about a meter away from the group.
"Urchin." Miss Militia said. I hadn't seen her since Gaston died. I pushed down the feeling that surged up when I remembered that night.
It wasn't the time, I thought, I had a job to do. I swallowed the misery and forced a grin onto my face.
"Nice dress." I waggled my eyebrows at her. "I'm waggling my eyebrows at you so hard right now," I added after a moment. Fucking mask, nobody could see.
Battery scoffed. She was standing still, probably charging up her power as much as possible in case I attacked. She could probably put me through the carriage wall in an instant. Yikes.
Violence broke out in the other room, Climax swung his massive wrench at the bloody guy and tore a ragged line through the train wall to the ceiling.
Holy shit he was strong. I was close enough to make out the other guy's facial features now. Oh. It was the guy from yesterday, from the station. Felix. I could see his name tag.
Felix stepped under another swing of Climax's wrench without care, smiling widely. It smashed out of a window and then carried through the wall to another. Aural was flitting around Climax's attacks, trying to hamstring or hinder Felix with a small sharp knife, but nothing was connecting.
She stepped under Climax's swing from the danger zone seemingly perfectly at ease, she swiped at Felix's eyes but he reached out and gently brushed her hand aside. He continued his advance towards Swallow, who was retreating from the fighting. Swallow couldn't use her bombs without hitting her teammates.
All the while the Rail Tracer was advancing on her, the obvious weak link in melee combat, they were getting desperate.
If they lost any more ground they would practically be in our carriage= but Miss Militia still hadn't replied. Chorus wasn't the problem here dammit, we needed to stop the killer. We were wasting time, there were people still in the other carriage.
"Look, that dude is obviously the Rail Tracer," I said. "Temporary truce to kick his ass?" I suggested hopefully.
They were all silent, Dean and Kid Win had finished changing now. Dean was now wearing a simple black bodysuit, black boots, and a motorbike helmet.
All the money in the world and his costume was the equivalent of a flat white with two sugars. I held back from calling him a basic bitch, barely.
Battery had her body angled towards me, but she was looking at the fight in the next carriage. Kid Win had his laser pistols pointed to the ground and was looking back and forth between me and the fight. Miss Militia was staring at me, silently. Fuck it, I wasn't going to wait until someone else got killed.
I cleared my throat loudly.
"I'm going to go get Aural and then Climax," I pointed to them both in turn, then I pointed to Battery, "Are you going to Swallow?"
"Dude!" Kid win yelped. Dean looked impressed and Battery looked pissed off but held her silence. Miss Militia just sighed and jerked her head towards the other carriage.
I stepped between the heroes and they didn't immediately mob me so I kept going. I'd have to be careful, she never actually agreed to that truce. The carriage they were fighting in was absolutely destroyed, Climax was just swinging madly at Felix but nothing had even come close to touching him.
He had to have some sort of precognition or something, the way he was moving was incredibly strange, he was moving fast but everything he did had a languid look to it. He looked up suddenly, met my eye and smiled. Well that was terrifying.
I gave the battlefield a quick once over again before I stepped over the threshold. There were civilians on the floor with their hands over there heads, cowering among the destroyed doors and walls of the cabins.
There were gaping holes in the walls and all you could hear in this carriage was the wind blasting past the train. I would have to be careful about the types of attacks I used in such close quarters, only blunt wires and swipes, no piercing attacks. I didn't want to kill anyone by accident.
I watched them fight for a moment longer to identify a opportunity to attack that wouldn't get a member of Chorus killed.
Swallow was crawling through the rubble towards me, on her hands and knees and an expression of terror on her face. Aural lashed out and barely managed to deflect a knife-hand from Felix that would have connected with Climax's throat.
Her knife was knocked free of her hand by his counter and she spun underneath the return swing of Climax's wrench and plucked the knife out of the air with her other hand before lashing out again, hitting nothing but air.
Climax's massive swing traveled from the roof to the ground at an angle. Felix stepped onto the end of it and then off again halfway through the swing, he made it look effortless.
The maneuver had placed him in between them and Swallow now, he stepped backwards towards Swallow and they desperately tried to delay his advance but it was like fighting the wind.
I created an arm out of wires as tall as I was and sent the palm of my creation flashing through the air above Swallow and coming at Felix from the side.
Just as the giant palm was about to connect and slap him out of the train he did something incredible. He lifted a hand and placed it onto the top of the construct and lifted himself off the ground with a little spin.
For a beat, he was in a single-hand handstand with his feet just brushing the ceiling before the hand passed and smashed through the wall of the train. I stared at him shocked.
Felix twisted gracefully in the air and placed his foot onto Climax's wrench mid swing and stepped to the floor of the carriage. He moved closer to Swallow unhindered.
What the fuck, It was a sneak attack, from a blind spot, with a suddenness no-one else of the train should have been able to react to. He had just wandered on through as if he was having a nice stroll.
I sent out two more hands and lashed out with jabs, neither even came close to touching him. Aural had instantly acclimated to my addition to the fight started to use my attacks to insert more precisely targeted knife strikes. Climax just keep breaking everything in sight like it was made of paper.
How was Felix doing this? He was acting like he could see in every direction at once, somehow see everything and then move through it like it was a walk in the park. I glanced over my shoulder at the heroes, they hadn't moved much. Battery had angled herself back towards the fight, and by extension me.
Miss Militia was standing with her gun pointed down, she couldn't attack without risking the civilians hiding on the floor, and it was a bad idea to get between two enemies when they were beating the shit out of each other anyway.
Kid Win was similarly hamstrung, he had immediately fallen under Miss Militia's command when the cape stuff had broken out. Dean was staring with a strange intensity straight past me, watching the fight but not getting involved.
I turned back and abruptly switched tactics, I grabbed all of the civilians that were between Felix and me and dragged them out of the holes in the train. I generated some wires and smashed a hole in the carriage wall behind me on either side.
I moved the civilians that I held outside back through the hole and put them behind me near the heroes. They were screaming in terror, whoops. The heroes quickly started moving them back through to the other door and out of immediate danger.
I created a massive mesh of wires between Felix and Swallow, cutting her off from the fight. Swallow grabbed my leg and pulled herself up to her feet gasping for breath and looking wild eyed. Aural, Climax and Felix all continued fighting on the other side.
"Thanks!" She gasped out. She looked at the heroes and then turned back to the wall of wires. "I can't leave them in there!"
Climax came slamming through the wall of wires like it wasn't even there. I managed to push Swallow to the side of the carriage but Climax clipped me on his flight past, spinning me into the wall and the heroes had to dive out of his way.
His limp body smashed through a bunch of tables and came to a stop sprawled on the broken remains of a chair, unconscious. Holy shit. Swallow was wildly swinging her arms trying to regain her balance as she slowly tipped out of the open hole in the wall and I barely managed to grab her in time.
I looked through the wires in time to see Aural dive back through the gap in the wires and out of range of Felix grasping hand. She tumbled through into a roll and came up out of it to a stand next to me. She met my eyes and nodded.
Felix was laughing happily like he was having the time of his life, I covered the holes on the sides of the train as best I could, and his voice laughter became much easier to hear as a result. He didn't have a single mark on him from the fight, hell he wasn't even out of breath.
He was however, still completely covered in blood.
"Well, that was fun!" Felix said, cheerfully. He lazily reached down to a mostly destroyed table and flipped it over.
A blonde woman lay there in a white dress. She would have been stunningly beautiful in any other circumstance, but now she was covered in debris and her hair had come loose from its elaborate braid.
The dress that probably cost more money then I had seen in my entire life had been ruined by a spreading red stain at her shoulder, where the blood from a cut on her temple had run down her neck to meet the white material.
The woman looked around vaguely not really acknowledging anything, she was probably concussed. Felix pulled her to her feet silently and I felt a chill spread down my spine. She was too far away for me to do anything before he reacted. So I watched and waited for him to ruthlessly murder her, but he simply sent her on her way with a smile.
Everybody in the carriages was silent as the woman went. She took two steps towards the end of the train and then fell towards one of the many open holes in the wall. I had wires tearing out of the carriage headed towards her in an instant, but I wasn't needed.
Felix grabbed her hand and pulled her back, she managed to steady herself after a moment and continued down the hall away from us. The door to the carriage opened as she approached it and closed behind her as she left.
I couldn't understand what I had just witnessed. Felix turned back to us with a grin, his perfectly white teeth stood out in stark contrast to all of the blood on his face.
Felix pointed to the roof of the train before he jumped towards a hole that Climax had made. He grabbed the edge of the roof and flipping himself upwards and onto the roof of the train, out of sight.
Fuck, we had to go after him, He could just wander along the roof bypassing us and start killing people. I turned around and brushed passed Aural, and found Miss Militia and Battery talking in low tones.
Swallow had made her way to Climax and the heroes tensed but let her pass unharmed before they closed ranks behind her. Aural stood calmly next to me, not saying a word, but not attacking anyone either.
"Alright," I said into the carriage, nearly everybody turned to me. "So that was the Rail Tracer."
Swallow had managed to get Climax into a sitting position and was trying to wake him up.
"He's probably going to kill more people." I continued, I pointed to the roof. "So I'm going to go up there and do my best to kick his ass."
I clapped my hands together once and then spread my arms out wide.
"Who's coming with me?" I asked them cheerfully. A flurry of action occurred, everybody started talking quickly and quietly to each other.
Aural tapped me on the shoulder, I looked at her. She pointed at me, then at herself and then nodded once smiling.
Curious, either she wanted to duck away for a quickie or we were teaming up, hopefully it was both.
"Awesome," I said, "Any other takers?" Miss Militia and Battery were still arguing in low voices.
Before Battery put up a hand in surrender, then she moved towards us. Fuck yeah, we had this in the bag, we were the dream team. Battery stopped next to us silently and crossed her arms.
"Battery will go with you," Miss Militia send unnecessarily. Dean stepped forward.
"I'm going too." He said quietly. Battery immediately tried to shut down that idea.
"Sit down, kid. You aren't going anywhere." She said harshly. "You aren't trained for this."
He wasn't looking at her though, he was looking at me. Battery looked like she was going to press the issue, but Dean spoke up.
"The guy that everyone just fought." He said, intensely. "His name is Claire Stansfield, he's my older brother."
"I knew it!" I shouted immediately. I almost couldn't believe it. "I fucking knew it was one of the Stansfield's. I thought it was you for a while though, not gonna lie."
Dean was looking at me strangely, probably impressed with my incredible deduction skills, I'd almost had it. I was only off by a deviation of exactly one brother.
He shouldered his way through the group and over to me. Battery looked stressed, but let him pass, It looks like he was coming with us.
"Let's do this," I said, grinning. "Temporary Full Frontals: roll out."
Batteries eyebrows narrowed and Dean was mouthing 'Full Frontals?' under his breath.
Aural shook her head with a smile.
Authors Note:
Thanks for reading. Lots of interactions in this one, lots of talky talks, and a bit of action. What do you guys think? Anyone figure out who the rail tracer was before he was named?