I2DT - On My Way

by **Nailah Weaver** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 12:39 am

"Okay, I'm somewhere over the address... Is there a window out the back or something?" Nailah asks Onyx over the phone as she circles high above the roofs.

by **Onyx** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 7:59 pm

"In the alley. On the second floor. I have left the window open for you," Onyx says.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:03 pm

Nailah swoops down and lands in a perfect crouch on the windowsill. She feels strangely calm right now. Somewhere in the back of her head is still that paniced voice but as long as she has her plan she feels like it's easy to handle everything. She slips into the building with a sense of purpose, just going with the flow of what her power tells her to do. Simple, really. Much better than being scared.

by **Onyx** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 11:07 am

It's a decent apartment. The building is a little old and run-down, but the apartment itself is nicely furnished and decorated. It's the sort of place that felt...comfortable. The owner had kept it clean and there's plenty of personal touches on display for Nailah to see. Photos of family. Dog-eared novels sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. An ugly landscape painting in the hallway that could only be on display for sentimental reasons.

It looks like someone's home.

Ask her about the symbol.

Onyx is standing in the living room. The man she assaulted earlier that day is sitting on a chair in the living room. His skin is as pale as a ghost, so pale that it's hard to see that his throat had been cut.

Behind him is an enormous symbol of an open palm, painted on the wall in red.

"Nailah?" Onyx asks. She looks and sounds relieved.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 4:58 pm

The sight of the pale corpse surrounded by so much... normality and homeliness makes Nailah swallow hard and she tries to focus on anything but the corpse sitting there as if he was taking a nap. When she opens her mouth her voice sounds firm, almost clinical. "What's that symbol?" She should just drop the path she's on, give her friend a hug, try to comfort her. But that'd mean having to face the fact that there's a dead person sitting in the room all by herself and she's not sure she could handle that right now. Her heart is hammering in her chest but as long as she has a plan everything's alright. That's the important thing to focus on right now.

by **Onyx** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:04 pm

"...It is the symbol for a group of assassins," Onyx says. "The Open Palm. They are based in Madripoor and specialize in killing the superpowered and supernatural."

It might also be a symbol familiar to Nailah for a different reason.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:07 pm

"It... it's the same one you have on your shoulder." she suddenly realizes.

by **Onyx** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:28 pm

Onyx nods, "I was supposed to be one of them."

"...I do not understand why any of this is happening," Onyx closes her eyes. "I am missing something."

Check the body.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 9:42 pm

"Maybe it's revenge or something?" she wonders as she walks up to the dead man. Somewhere in the back of her head is a little voice that's freaking out but she shuts the door on it and channels her power. Just a set of instructions. Really not that hard to follow if you don't have to think too much about what you're doing. She starts looking the man over for any hints as to what happened aside from the obvious.

by **Onyx** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:00 pm

It was obvious he was moved. First, despite being drained of blood, the area around him was clean. There were also defensive wounds on one of his arms, signs of a struggle. The arm Onyx had twisted earlier was bandaged and splinted, apparently she had seriously injured him earlier.

"Maybe," Onyx says. "What are you looking for?"

Don't tell her about your power.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 5:12 pm

That was weird. Like, really weird. Hadn't she mentioned something about it to her before? Not in much detail but at least a little bit... Still, her power had to have a reason for making her do that. Beginning to second-guess herself now seems like a terrible idea when there's a dead guy in the room and Onyx could very well get arrested. Not to mention that she's probably making herself look suspicious just by being here. Stick to the plan, Nailah.

"I'm not sure. Just... something. Like he probably wasn't killed here cause there's no blood around him. Maybe we should try to find out where he was killed."

by **Onyx** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 6:05 pm

"Everything was locked from the inside when I found him," Onyx says. "And there was no sign of forced entry. He had to have been killed here."

by **Nailah Weaver** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 6:29 pm

"Then let's search through the apartment. His blood has to be somewhere." This felt like it shouldn't have come out this... calmly. Still, it's true and she starts carefully moving through the apartment to look for signs of struggle and blood.

by **Onyx** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:13 am

A careful search of the apartment didn't reveal any sign of a struggle or blood, but there were a few odd things. There were two mugs of coffee on the counter, both cold, and the bathtub smelled faintly of bleach. There was also a pile of clothes in his bedroom, the clothes he had been wearing earlier that day.

Check under the bed.

"They must have cleaned the apartment before I arrived," Onyx called out to Nailah from the kitchen.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:26 am

"Yeah, I guess. Smells like bleach." she informs Onyx as she goes down on one knee to lean down and look under the bed.

by **Onyx** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:34 am

There's a lot of junk under the bed, but it doesn't take Nailah long to find a cell phone.

Do not tell Onyx about the phone.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:40 am

This was getting strange. Really strange. She fishes for the phone with her hand, bracing herself against the edge of the bed until she manages to grab the thing. She quickly checks the cellphone to see if it belongs to the man or maybe one of the assailants.

by **Onyx** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:53 am

From the photos on the phone, it probably belonged to the dead man. Apparently, his name was "Brian Kirkland".

If she checked the phone history, she saw there had been two recent calls. He had made a call to an unknown number in the evening. Thirty minutes later, he had received a call from Onyx's number.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 2:58 am

Only one way to find out more. Nailah dials the unknown number, keeping her head halfway underneath the bed, pretending to continue looking for stuff.

by **Onyx** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:49 am

The phone rang twice before someone answered, speaking in Chinese.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:54 am

Nailah hangs up immediately. She makes an effort to try and remember what the voice said, but she has not the slightest clue about Chinese, so that's probably wishful thinking. She pockets the phone and goes on to take a quick look through the rest of the apartment, looking out for any signs the man might have had ties to Madripoor.

by **Onyx** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 4:59 am

There didn't seem to be anything in the apartment that indicated a connection to Madripoor. If anything, it seemed Mr. Kirkland hadn't been the type to travel. Most of his decorations and other odds and ends were from Maldon or London.

"Find anything?" Onyx asks rather suddenly.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 5:06 am

"Not really." she lies, flinching slightly at Onyx' sudden appearance. "I dunno, this is really weird."

"Why were you looking for him in the middle of the night anyway?"

by **Onyx** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:22 am

"I wanted to ask him a few questions," Onyx says simply.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:35 am

"What now? We can't just leave him here... Should we call the police and tell them what's going on?"

by **Onyx** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 11:22 am

"I don't think that would be the best idea," Onyx says. "I'd obviously be the number one suspect."

"Did you find his phone, by any chance?"

by **Nailah Weaver** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:28 pm

"No." she says before she even really has a chance to decide whether or not she wants to lie to her friend. She tells herself it's for a good reason, although she's not entirely sure what that reason is yet.

"But we have to do something. We can't just leave him here like this... He was killed with one of your weapons and I bet now there's all kinds of evidence of us around the apartment."

by **Onyx** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:31 am

"We can burn the apartment," Onyx says. "Destroy the evidence."

by **Nailah Weaver** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:42 am

"That seems pretty drastic. Maybe we should better try to catch whoever did this."

by **Onyx** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:49 am

"That's a good point," Onyx says. She frowns, walking over to the window.

"...The traffic stops," Onyx says, pointing to an intersection near the building. "There are cameras. If we can pull the footage from them, we might be able to find something suspicious."

by **Nailah Weaver** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 1:11 am

"We'd have to break into the police or wherever they keep that. We're already in enough trouble as it is, Onyx."

by **Onyx** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:08 pm

"Do you have a better idea?" Onyx asks.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:17 pm

Nailah hems and haws a bit, trying to get her power to give her something but instead is only rewarded with a piercing headache. Without knowing where exactly she was going with all this she suddenly feels like she might have made things worse if she can't pick up the trail again. Stealing camera footage could be the one thing that derails things now! She opens and closes her fists a couple times as she tries to think when her eyes finally land on the back of the dead guys head and she suddenly feels like leaving the apartment is an excellent idea just so she doesn't have to face a corpse without the reassuring guidance of being on rails.

"O-okay, but let's be careful."

by **Onyx** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 10:12 pm

"Of course," Onyx says. She walks over to the body and picks up the murder weapon, stowing it safely into a pocket of her belt. "I'd hate to put you in any danger."

Onyx leads Nailah out of the building, locking the window behind them as they exit.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 10:56 pm

"Pretty sure it's too late for that already. Unless they decide he was killed by a cat..." she says. Now that she's off the rails her tails is swishing back and forth nervously as she follows Onyx.

by **Onyx** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 11:44 pm

Onyx doesn't reply. Instead, she climbs quickly to the roof and takes off in a sprint. She jumps to the next building and keeps running in an all out sprint.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Sat Nov 07, 2015 12:53 am

"Damnit Onyx, what's gotten into you?" Nailah mumbles as she breaks into a sprint to try and gain some momentum to take flight to try and not get left behind.

by **Onyx** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:40 am

Onyx finally stops several buildings away. Distantly, Nailah can hear foreboding sirens.

"It sounds like someone tipped them off," Onyx says when Nailah catches up to her.

by **Nailah Weaver** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:48 am

Nailah already is a little nervous when she hears the sirens. Onyx more or less confirming that they're quite possibly looking for them nudges her dangerously close to freaking out completely. They're te good guys, they're not supposed to run from the police!

"Bad guys run and hide from the police..." she tries to articulate her feelings.

by **Onyx** » Mon Nov 09, 2015 2:00 am

"Everyone should run from the police," Onyx says. "They're fat, corrupt idiots and they've likely already have been infiltrated by the Open Palm."

"We can't trust anyone."

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