It had been a few hours since the Rowe brothers arrived in Seattle, and they were already on the tail of a conduit.
All over the rainy city, charred corpses were being strung about in alleyways, strange pink graffiti burned into the ground around them.
"Well, at least it looks pretty," Izuku said as he looked at the most recent victim. The guy was suspended on a fountain, wisps of neon light surrounding his body.
"I've got a hit on the guy's face; he's some kind of a drug dealer, rap sheet a mile long. We should look for a stash, see if we can find anything about why he was chosen," Reggie suggested, closing the portable laptop he was carrying.
"Think I found it," Delsin called out from a few feet away. A blue duffle bag lay at his feet, and he attempted to pick it up, only for it to be blown to bits by a neon laser, causing Delsin to fall on his ass.
"Delsin! Are you alright?" Reggie frantically asked as he pulled the smoke conduit to his feet.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Whatever that was, it came from inside the billboard." Delsin turned into smoke and allowed himself to be sucked up into a vent, while Izuku used a pulse of sound to launch himself towards it.
A blur of bright pink jumped down from the billboard and jumped to the building across from it, which is where they began to fire beams of light at them.
"Hey! What's your deal?!" Delsin yelled as a lazer grazed his leg.
No matter how close the two got, the blur still managed to slip through their fingers, and it wasn't long before the neon speedster was gone entirely.
"Oh, screw your sound power Izuku, I want that!" Delsin giddily exclaimed.
"It's not that cool," Izuku grumbled.
His phone began to buzz in his pocket, and once he picked it up, Reggie's voice rang out, "Hey, you guys ok?"
"Yeah," Izuku replied, "Yeah we're good, but the conduit got away."
"Damnit. Alright, I want you two to go investigate the billboard he was hiding in. See if you can find any clues as to where he might be now," Reggie ordered.
"Gotcha." Izuku hung up the phone and blasted himself into the nook between the billboards, Delsin appearing immediately after.
"Well, looks like our sniper is a sniperette," Delsin said.
It was true, the crevasse was decorated with all manners of women's clothing, make-up, and romance novels. A few bags of take-out littered the place and the name 'Brent' was burned into the walls in cursive writing.
The sound of a camera clicking forced Izuku to turn around and see his brother taking pictures of panties that had been left on a wire, presumably to dry.
"Dude, don't be gross," Izuku told his brother, punctuating his sentence by slapping his arm.
"Reggie told me to take pictures of stuff that might clue us in on where she is now."
"And that's what you decided to take a picture of first?!"
Delsin shook his head and waved his brother off, continuing to take pictures of their surroundings. Izuku wandered around, and noticed some random blue squiggles on the billboards. Once he got right next to it, the squiggles joined with another group of them on the road forming the face of a raggedy man with a mohawk.
"That's some gourmet shit right there," Delsin observed, snapping a picture. "Reggie said that he's gonna go over to the station and cross-reference this face with the name Brent, so we got some time to kill."
"Cool," Izuku replied. "I think I've figured out what this chick's power is by the way."
"Oh, do tell." the youngest brother asked.
"Did you notice how every time she went under a neon sign it would flicker and go out? I think that's what she drains from," Izuku pointed out.
"Neon, huh. Hey, if I grab this do you think we could put on EDM concerts in our living room?" Delsin asked.
"You hate EDM."
"Not necessaril—"
"What do you mean 'not necessarily'? You constantly say it's the bane of music!" Izuku yelled.
Delsin was about to respond when his phone buzzed with a text. "Hey, Reggie said that he knows who Brent is. He was a drug dealer who got murdered a few blocks to the right, and get this: he had a charred 'bullet' wound. Sound familiar?"
"Sounds like our girl. Let's go check it." Izuku backed up out of the billboard, and sent himself flying before he could hit the ground.
"Yo, you got my drugs?" a shady looking man asked as a group of three equally shady looking men walked up to him.
"Yeah, if you got our money," the man who seemed to be the leader answered.
"Of course I do—," the sound of a jovial war cry filled their ears, cutting the man off. "Do you hear that?"
"Heads up fuckfaces!"
Izuku crashed into the dealers, sending them flying all over the alley. The buyer went down next: Delsin smoke-dashing into him, wrapping his chain around his neck and tossing him a few feet.
"Coordination, baby!" Delsin cheered as he high-fived his brother.
"So this is the place?" Izuku asked, staring up at the decrepit building.
"That's what Reggie told me. Let's get inside."
Delsin stepped up to the door and rattled the knob a bit, but to no avail, so he did the next best thing, placing his hand on the knob and blasting off the lock.
The place might as well have been a closed haunted house.
The word 'Brent' was sprawled all over the walls, to the point where almost none of the wall was visible. As the two brothers walked further into the house, they noticed a light source, not made from the neon light surrounding them.
In a room at the back of the house, a shrine of sorts sat idly on the back wall: candles surrounded framed pictures of Brent, and behind them a mural of Brent sitting in a chair and facing the door was burned into the wall.
"This doesn't make any sense; if this chick killed him then why does she act like he's some sort of deity?" Delsin questioned.
"It's strange." Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku noticed piles of take-out food piled near the mural. "Hey, I know that place; it's got this big neon sign. We can wait for her to stop by and grab some food."
"Nah, that'll take too much time. We need to be quick about this or everybody back in Salmon Bay will die," Delsin said.
"Delsin, this might be our only chance at catching her. Look at these." Izuku picked up a pile of receipts from a table and spread them out. "She goes there almost every night. If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it."
Delsin sighed and aimlessly gazed around the room, before finally agreeing to Izuku's plan. "You better be right about this Izuku."
Abigail 'Fetch' Walker, a girl from New Jersey with short purple hair and a plethora of piercings, skidded onto the roof of the restaurant that she frequently ordered from. She wore a large green coat, a white shirt, and a pair of dark red shorts over torn leggings.
"Man, I'm starving," Fetch said to herself, taking a few steps towards the roof entrance.
The sun had just gone down mear minutes ago so the D.U.P. was still active, but she wasn't worried; nobody could catch her anyway
Fetch must have jinxed herself, because before she even got a chance to react, somebody grabbed onto her hand. Instantly, neon sparks flew from their hands, lighting up their faces.
It felt like her power was being drained out of her body, and it hurt like a bitch. Fetch immediately thought was that whoever this was, must be a D.U.P. agent, and there was not a figure skating chance in hell that she was going back to Curden Cay. So she mustered up every last bit of her strength, and broke free from her aggressors hold.
Dazed and scared, Fetch's first thought was to run away, neon outlines of her body following her close behind.
Fetch could deftly hear someone yell, "Get after her!" from back on the building.
Izuku grunted as he rolled onto another roof, before sprinting off of it and jumping to the next one.
Thanks to Delsin's slippery buttery fingers, he was tasked with cutting the other conduit off at an abandoned auditorium, while his brother chased her there. Thankfully, Delsin had managed to steal the ability to run like she did, so keeping up wasn't an issue.
For Delsin at least.
Izuku, however, was struggling to beat them, even going so far as putting a dent in the side of an apartment complex by blasting himself off of it.
Finally, after ten minutes of non-stop running, he reached the auditorium, and with one final pulse from his feet, he soared over the building…
And smacked into the girl they were chasing, forcing them both through an open skylight.
Delsin blinked into existence next to them and grabbed the girl by the hand again, causing purple and pink sparks to fly between them.
After a few more seconds of Delsin draining her powers, the purple and the pink fused into a bright blue and rocketed both of the conduits a few feet back. Izuku jumped to his brother's aid, while the girl got up and pointed an open palm at the two, pink neon light extending from each of her fingers and forming an orb in the middle of her hand.
"Fetch, wait!" Delsin screamed, holding out his hands in an attempt to calm her.
"Fetch?" she questioned.
"We're not your enemies here," Delsin said, taking a few steps closer to her.
Fetch froze for a few seconds, before going back on the offensive, the neon orb in her hand growing bigger. "Bullshit, I ain't trusting no D.U.P. rats!"
Izuku looked at her like she was two cans short of a six pack. "D.U.P.? No, you've got it all wrong; we're quite literally the exact opposite."
"What?" Fetch asked, lowering her hand, causing the neon orb to dissipate. "If you're not D.U.P. then why have you been fuckin' with me all day?"
"You know that town your transport crashed in? Well Augustine plowed straight through it and now our people are dying because of her," Izuku explained.
"And the only way to save them is for her power to undo what she did. Thankfully, I am a power sponge, so I just need to hold her hand for a bit and I can save all of them. But I'm not strong enough to take her on, so I needed a few more powers, and you are the first one we came across," Delsin finished.
"Ok, ok, I believe you, so you basically have a copy of my power now don't yo—" An arm wrapped around Fetch's neck before she could complete her sentence.
"Reggie, what the hell dude?!" Izuku yelled.
"She's a murderer. As a police officer, it is my rightful duty to bring her in," Reggie answered, trying to control the squirming Fetch.
"I know that, and what she did is awful, but they were drug dealers, people who have ruined other people's lives beyond comprehension. It's not like she was killing Innocents!" Izuku argued.
Suddenly, Delsin stepped up to Reggie and ripped his arm off of the neon conduit. An alien malice filled his eyes as he growled out, "When it comes to dealing with conduits, the decision is mine. Not yours, not ours, mine," Delsin let go of the eldest brother's wrist and shoved him a bit.
"Fine. But don't come crying to me if she burns a hole in your leg," Reggie spat, before walking to the exit of the theater.
"Delsin, the fuck?!" Izuku grabbed his brother by his jacket and brought their faces close together so they could communicate quietly.
"I— I'm sorry, ok? But I couldn't just let him send Fetch to jail. Now are you gonna help me figure out this new power?" Delsin rhetorically asked.
"Nah man, you're on your own for this one," Izuku backed up a few paces, before shooting himself out through the sky light, and tumbling next to a disgruntled Reggie.
"I thought you'd be helping out Delsin."
"No, it's better if you and me start on the trail of the next conduit. How's your wrist?"
"I'm fine, I experienced much worse at the police academy," Reggie said, waving off his little brother's concern.
Izuku grinned as he threw his arm around Reggie's shoulder, "Come on then, the night is still young."
So I'll be honest, I tried to write the Fetch fight about ten different times, and I came up with nothing each time. So I hope that it doesn't bother you that I just had Izuku and Delsin talk her off the ledge. That's it for now, Peace.