Scene #6976: Between Names, Actually

Owner	Pose
Raphael Cousteau	"Welcome to Revachol!" - some racist guy, probably It's a weird world to get into. There have been preliminary warnings to /not/ attempt to enter the world via anything but the warpgates. There is gray, godawful.. /nothing/ in the way, and it's still being worked out how standard vehicles can avoid it with the locals. The locals who are, by the way, extremely upset and concerned that this new development is going to let The Bad Sort Of People In, and are not being particularly cooperative. As a matter of fact, there is already a blockade of dockworkers in front of the warpgate trying desperately to keep anyone from shipping anything in or out, and a variety of truck drivers desperate to move their trucks somewhere. Other than that, this just looks like a wartorn hellhole in the very early beginnings of Spring.
Pazkar	Among those responding to the call, is a man in golden armor and helmet, fully face-covering, with red pulsating orbs built into it as some sort of power source. He walks through the warpgate into the big group of dockworkers, and starts walking past, pushing through them and finding Optimal Shortcuts around. However, when someone says 'Welcome to Revachol', he finally speaks. Thank you. This pings in front of everyone in 'earshot', without sound other than a 'blip', probably not helping the racism problem. But the golden knight doesn't care. He's a Paladin, now! That means he needs to help this amnesiac guy. It's a Quest. He doesn't seem to be worried about violence, at least.
Tony Stark	MOMENTS EARLIER: Anthony Stark, Billionaire Genius Superhero Philanthropist (he dropped the 'playboy' part a while ago) relaxed in his compound in upstate New York, nursing a crystal glass of scotch with a large snowball ice cube in it. The plans for a new iteration on some minor component of his armor hovered in a display on a desk strewn with compostable coffee cups. Toolboxes sat on toolbenches, and robotic arms did any real assembly in a large forge area past that. He was... Bored. The New Year, and nobody to share it with. He amused himself talking to the Paladin subtactical net, until a voice came on. A man who had clearly come up from air after a legendary bender. It struck inner heartstrings that had sat, cold and wasted, for years now. The man he 'used to be'. Before he became the Iron Man. "Alright, children, draw lots for shotgun and finalize assembly on the latest model. We're doing a field test." NOW: The warpgate ripples with a red-and-gold form with a square chest aperature showing a blue ring that hums lightly as it spins behind a clear 'glass' face. Hovering on hand- and boot-jets, Iron Man sets down as data starts flooding into the suit sensors. "Sir - the atmosphere here is dense with a variety of exoenergetical... particulate, for lack of a better word, that is entirely baffling to my sensors." JARVIS reports. In his helmet, Stark quirks a brow as pictures whiz across his brow and before his eyes. "Well, we're not doing an aerial pass then. Mark flight cieling." "Flight cieling marked. Shall I disperse the crowd?" Tony smirks. "No need. I've got that." Landing and continuing at a walking pace, Stark just walks past the dockworkers. "Excuse me, I'm a consultant for the Revachol militia, thank you, please step aside, appreciated, yes, excuse me, and welcome to Revachol to you...too."
Raphael Cousteau	The dockworkers do not seem too happy about this. "...bullshit! He's Wild Pines! Wild Pines is sending more mercs to break the strike!" One of them turns around, frantically waving to someone in the distance.. Let's talk a little geography. This gate's almost right in front of a dilapidated statue of a man on a horse. It's clearly not supposed to be here, and the lack of associated infrastructure says that they're still not sure what to do with it. To the northeast is a harbour. The steel gates are locked shut, and what was a counter-strike by a bunch of scabs in front of a gridlock of truckdrivers has become a strange two-front war, as they cannot seem to decide whether to push through the solid steel door, or to this new development. A thin man in a red beret sits atop the wall, waving back. He's clearly calling something in. Pazkar gets a ..more confused response. "..Wait, the fuck? That ain't ceramics. This asshole's wearing gold! Where are the Hardy boys? They'd deal with this!"
Tony Stark	Tony's HUD retains the cold blue light, a pulse of digital blue expanding past his feet as JARVIS scans the 'reception' area. "Tactical assessment completed, sir." Stark pans his sight over the people shouting at him about Wild Pines, remembering that Detective Kim had said something to the effect. As the X-Ray of people's pockets revealed more loose change and lint than futuristic handheld tank-crackers he shrugged, the gesture carrying a gentle whir of motorics as the glowing slit-eyes panned over the crowd. "Yeah, no, going with no. Look, I'm here for the Whirling-In-Rags?" Stark grows more exasperated as Pakzar is accosted by The Poors. "Follow my lead, kid." He urges, before just dead-ass striding through the crowd. There was no real need to shoulder through - they'd pass, or try to do something, and get moved. "Sir, there's an outgoing call from the man on the wall. It may be some kind of alarm." Stark would rub his face, but encased in a powered battlesuit, he doesn't have the luxury of extreme emoting. "Jam it, own it, send him a nastygram. Index 'Whirling-in-Rags'." His visor switches to a datastream that begins ignoring people as anything more than obstructing shapes, zeroing in on -- the second floor of the building down the street, the labels of the building covered in graffiti and obscenities. MEANWHILE, ON THE WALL: The dockworker's radio crackles with static, before JARVIS beeps in with a somber "Sir, you are interfereing with a Revachol Militia investigation. Please cease and desist. For your own safety, your radio will be disengaged after this transmission." Iron Man points up at the second floor of the Whirling-in-Rags with the smashed out window. "There it is, kid, just keep up."
Pazkar	As they shout about the Hardy boys, a Who? appears, briefly. Whether or not they reply, Pazkar looks up to the man being waved at on top of the gate, and starts walking towards him. He only stops to go elsewhere when Tony asks him to, and as this voice is that of an ally, he follows. They're in the same Party, after all. As they push through the crowd, Pazkar following after the other armored man, he points out to the smashed window, the second floor of the Whirling-in-Rags. I see. Thank you, fellow Gearknight. And then, Pazkar activates a bunch of vaguely clockwork/steampunk thrusters that appear out of the back and legs of his armor, and moves to fly up to the window, peer around, and then look for the body around the building. Presumably, there will be cops around it!
Raphael Cousteau	The man in the red beret looks at his radio. He seems remarkably unconcerned about what Jarvis has just done, instead walking down the top of the wall. He looks at a strangely painted man, and seems to explain something. The large, painted man visibly cracks his knuckles, and begins to move. Pazkar finds that there's relatively low resistance. The dockworkers aren't equipped for this, it seems. They were expecting to hold back scabs, not guys in full armor. Speaking of scabs, a man looking..surprisingly hale and hearty, in fairly common clothes, punches Pazkar in the shoulder encouragingly. "That'll show 'em! Show the union that we have the--" He turns to his crowd. "RIGHT TO WORK! RIGHT TO WORK!" He's about to keep going, it seems, explaining something probably incredibly important about the situation here, when he's interrupted by the same thing a separate man is about to be interrupted by. Because the Iron Man is going to find that there's someone in his way. A man with dark skin, painted head to toe in phrenological tattoos. "I AM MEASUREHEAD. YOU WILL SHOW YOUR PATHETIC FACE FROM BEHIND YOUR ARMOR, BEFORE--" There we go. There appears to have been a loud gunshot from behind the Whirling in Rags.
Pazkar	As Pazkar is punched encouragingly, he turns, and just nods. He might be about to reply and learn the Important Things from the man, when something goes off. A gunshot. Or to Pazkar, the sound of a Thundergun, since he has no idea what a regular gun is. Hunker down. I will investigate the disturbance. And then, Pazkar's thrusters move to fly him as close to the gunshot's site as possible while trying to bypass obstacles, past anyone in the way. His goal is to get to the site and find out exactly what happened, while Tony investigates the big tattooed man. Coordinating with the Party is good. It means everyone gets their job done.
Tony Stark	Pakzar takes to the sky to head towards the Whirling-in-Rags, and Tony is about to follow on foot when he's stopped short by a man that makes even Iron Man look up. And up. Anthony Stark is not an enormously tall man, but he is not a manlet by any stretch - and the best personal trainers money can buy fill out both a tailored and tactically superheroic suit. The man gets to 'pathetic face' as the faceplate pops up, the backplate of the head retracting into slots around the neck and collar of the suit. "And I'm Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. Since I just heard a gunshot, you are offically interfering with an investigation, and not just normal-speed wasting my time. Step aside, or get in line." Muttering into his collar, Tony queries a quiet "Threat assessment?" JARVIS helpfully replies, equally muted: "You shouldn't have retracted your helmet, sir."
Lilian Rook	Sitting through the same confusing mess on the radio, with something about bizarre signal tracing issues, a travel restriction, and severely suspect policework, Lilian dares to spend a few minutes of her time on this with the same kind of perversely fascinated resignation as someone who's spent all day resisting the urge to read someone's diary before giving up when the owner hadn't returned for it at the end of the day. She shows up in a buttoned down, slim black winter coat and tall leather boots, more or less resigned to wade through a little slush. Various gold links and pins, the extremely bespoke fit, and the signs of a necklace and small jeweled ear studs don't even attempt to mask her as one of the working class, and she hasn't let her hair down from the celtic knot yet. Granted, she doesn't stand out nearly as much as two guys in golden armour, but she also exudes an aura of 'not-right'ness closely around where she walks; a palpable chill of somewhere someone really shouldn't be. It couples with a vague sort of unnatural attraction about her, hard to look away from, uncanny and yet undeniably exceeding beautiful. "If I may ask, what the hell are you doing Mister Stark?" Lilian enquires aloud from across Tony, hands in her pockets, posture all 'why are you wasting your time with this?' rather than 'you in trouble'. "And another newbie? Are these people really all so fascinating?"
Raphael Cousteau	First, let us deal with Tony Stark. The man staring him down does not seem to care about anything he just said. "YOU ARE NOT A POLICE OFFICER. YOU HAVE FRIVOLOUSLY WASTED YOUR WEALTH CHASING BACK WHAT YOU LOST TO AL GUL. YOU ARE ANOTHER PATHETIC MEMBER OF THE HAM SANDWICH RACE." The man's stance is wide. He is confident, breathing firmly in and out. "THE SEOLITE IS AN INVESTIGATOR. HE IS LEADING A PATHETIC BLOB AROUND." He has a hand on the Iron Man's arm. He is, at least, one of those race incredibly racist people who is actually in really, really good shape. It may actually require some effort to shake this man. Meanwhile, Pazkar flies over to find... Well, it's the backyard of the Whirling in Rags. There is a -reeking- corpse hanging from a tree. An asian looking man in an orange bomber jacket is holding a gun upwards towards the corpse, his gaze almost despondent. There is a boy nearby throwing rocks at the corpse, a girl behind a nearby fence egging him on, and... "...Well, you tried." The voice from the radio speaks. It emanates from a man. https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/discoelysium_gamepedia_en/thumb/0/00/Tequila_face.jpg/1200px-Tequila_face.jpg Yes, including that smile. At no point during this interaction will you see that smile leave his face. "...I don't think I could shoot it down either. We might have to figure out something else..." "HAH! Pigs fuckin' missed! Pigs fuckin' missed!" The red-haired child seems to find this the funniest thing in the world. Speaking of the disgusting, reeking corpse, it's hanging from a tree by a yellow freight-tying belt. Measurehead does not seem -too- concerned by Lilian at present. Probably easy enough to ambush him if you really want to. The rest of the dockworkers are looking incredibly concerned. This is not how anything should be going.
Pazkar	As Pazkar gets over to the backyard, he lands next to the group. Hello. I am the unbreakable Pazkar, member of the Paladins party. Allow me to attempt to remove the corpse for you. Please do not throw rocks at me. As Pazkar sets up the thrusters to lift up, probably getting rocks thrown at him because kids are mean (and having them bounce right off harmlessly if they do), he extends both arms. /Several/ spinning circular saws extend from his arms, whirling away like crazy, some on little grapplers to give them a more medium melee range. He's up close to the body, which is filthy and is kinda disgusting him, but he's seen corpses before, and any disease or rot will hopefully bounce off his armor unless it's more than something common. The saws go slicing through the belt, trying to cut through them as fast as possible to drop the corpse, not caring about gentleness. This is something used by dockworkers, I believe. He will grab the remnants of the belt once it's free, so he can bring it over as evidence. He has /some/ idea about how investigations work!
Tony Stark	Tony Stark doesn't balk at Measurehead. He's interacted with Steven Rogers, Thor Odinson... And Measurehead does Measure Up to both men, at least with definition and mass, though (one hopes) not a match for the invulnerable physiques of Asgard or the hyperdense wood-log-destroying-for-no-reason abs granted by the Superhuman Serum. Tony's smile is thin. "That's right. I'm not a cop. I'm on consult to the police force from the Paladins, a multiversal peacekeeping operation, and you are placing your hand on me." Stark's armor whirrs quietly, the arm Measurehead touches thrumming with some internal machination as the slow 'bweeeeEEEE' whine of a repulsor-spin up begins to fill the air. "You have five seconds to remove your hand from me and get out of my way." He pointedly doesn't finish the thought with an 'or else', though his stare becomes fierce, unflinching. Were his eyes lasers, they would burn a hole into Measurehead's. "I will spend my wealth however I deem fit." If Measurehead doesn't remove his hand within the time allotted - it's a precise window, Stark counts it in his head - Tony moves to peel the hand off with his opposite powered hand from his gauntlet. Either way, he makes his best pace to move past Measurehead. "Miss Rook. As I was just telling this gentleman-" Measurehead needs no indication. "I am here... consulting. Leading a good example." Stark's reason for coming here is largely more shameful and personal than simple philanthropy. "There was a gunshot from the crime scene. Let's hurry."
Lilian Rook	"I don't hurry." Lilian replies to Tony. It's delivered with a perfect, space grade precision, honed to the point of being an absolute fact, rather than an insistence. Lilian does not hurry. She does not need to. She does not deign to. "Do you need help finding it or something? Or does this . . . person not quite understand?" There's the familiar sound of rough, fluttering wings. Something dark and feathered jumps up to the air and takes off into the air from the cluttered townscape nearby. Probably a crow or something. "Well, I suppose there's a small possibility that it has to do with kids throwing rocks at a body in a tree, but I doubt that part." She strolls up to 'Measurehead', at least a full foot shorter than him. Withdrawing a gloved hand from her pocket, she draws a line across one of his tattoos. "The culture here is certainly colourful. These remind me of a pre-surgical patient. Like laser guides. 'Cut here, slice here'. Hmm, maybe more like a butchery." At abount that time, a very, very black crow, or raven, or something, settles down in one of the upper branches of the tree. It isn't incredibly remarkable, save for being more of an ink blot than having those nice shiny blue-black feathers.
Raphael Cousteau	Measurehead is, to his credit, doing incredibly well for a man up against power armor and a creepy woman. "'MULTIVERSAL'. WHATEVER THAT IS, IT SOUNDS LIKE RACIAL MIXING. A DEGENERATE RESULT OF AL GUL AND NAIVISTIC COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY. WHOEVER BUILT THIS MACHINE FOR YOU WASTED IT. IT SHOULD BELONG TO THE SEMENESE." He moves his other hand to Stark's, pushing, to..bend it backwards. In the power suit. It's entirely possible he may even pull it off. This man is an actual menace. He does this without even flinching at Lilian's comments. "THESE MARKINGS ARE INDICATIVE OF MY SUPERIOR PHRENOLOGY. MOST RACISTS ARE NOT PRIME EXAMPLES OF THEIR GENETIC STOCK. I AM AN EXCEPTION. I AM CRANIOMETRICALLY SUPERIOR TO YOU AND TO THE AL GUL GHOUL." Meanwhile, crime investigation. Kim Kitsuragi is taking the man in the armor just casually extending arms and cutting down the tree in stride, though he also seems to be taking notes in his notebook. The whole time, the red-haired child is absolutely throwing rocks at Pazkar. "Fuck the pigs!" The red-haired girl behind the fence yells. "Fuck the pigs and their weird tools! They're gonna snuff us, Cuno! You gotta be careful, Cuno!" Harry, for his part, has spent his time just kneeling down staring at the corpse, wordlessly. He doesn't look like he's entirely -there- for a long moment. And then finally... "His corpse is marked by stars." In fact, let's talk about the corpse, now that it's laid out on the ground. Bald man, forties or fifties or so. He's wearing all of his underwear and a pair of white...honestly, they're kind of combat boots similar to Iron Man's, except clearly not metallic in nature. He has tattoos over his upper body that appear like..blue circuitry. Or stars, or...something. He's definitely -been- hanging for a while. "...Tell me, who are you, dead man??" He asks the corpse. It doesn't move. It doesn't say anything, noone senses any magic or psychic emanations or anything. "Where have you gone?" ... "I can see you're gone, but who are you?" ... "You are now, but who were you when you were alive?" "...what is happening? I'm talking to you." He looks surprised a moment, before staring down at his necktie. "Why do I love questions so much? .. Who killed you? Can you ask me a question? ... maybe this will lead to something? Something indescribable. Unforeseen. Miraculous? .. Why were you feeling pleasure when you died?" What the fuck is he even doing?
Pazkar	As the corpse drops, Pazkar returns to ground level and retracts his thrusters. He ignores the bird on the tree, and turns to notice the rocks on the ground from where they were thrown at him. They did Absolutely Nothing to his armor, like, 1 Damage each, because they are rocks. Afterwards, Pazkar heads over to the body, and investigates. He doesn't do a deep investigation, just noting what he sees. I believe this man was a Gearknight, they were calling them something else here. His boots are of a non-metallic material but are similar to our armor, and there are markings similar to that on ancient technology on his body, in blue. Pazkar would deeper investigate the body, if it wasn't for those MEDDLING KIDS. He walks over to Cuno, kneels down, and speaks firmly. His helmet is kinda menacing - it's got big JRPG armored dude vibes. Your name is Cuno? Please stop throwing rocks at me. We are trying to solve a murder of a possible comrade. Please cease all activity at once, or I will have to go talk to your . . . sister. He's thoroughly unsure. They're both red-headed! They might be related! Or he might just also be racist.
Tony Stark	Stark, moments ago, had claimed he was trying to de-escalate the situation, and Lilian made fun of him for it. It was a very rude, Lilian Rook: Professional Magic Super-Elite comment. She was also incredibly right. But now Stark was in this shit. And Iron Man was not going to get t-posed on by a tattooed super-racist who was both anti-communistic and declaring that his people should own Stark's technology. "Yep. I'm done." With a series of whirring clicks, Stark's helmet re-engages, the brushed gold faceplate closing with a firm 'clunk!'. As the lights engage with a 'bwoon', the light that falls over Tony's face washes purple into tactical orange-red. Armament rows and statuses halo his vision as his suit's strength enhancements whirr against the establishedly 'homo-superior' strength of Measurehead. Tony, gritting his teeth as his eyes - whole head following - snaps to the Actual Credible Test Of Strength a hulking racist is giving him. Iron Man does not only have 'is strong' in the tank. "JARVIS, countermeasures." "Deploying countermeasures, sir." Two emitters on the suit's shoulders pop out from a plate that retracts from the collar towards the neck and chest. Both begin to emit concussive waves of inaudible sonic 'wubwubwub' directly into Measurehead's face, as Stark twists his gauntlet in Measurehead's grip, firing off the repulsor prepared in the palm in a burst of velocity to backhand Measurehead. Breaking free with a twist of his other arm and flare of boot-jet and back-jet verniers spinning around his body, Iron Man takes a stance of both hands up, palms out and aimed at the hulking brute - and expending the second pre-charged repulsor blast into Measurehead's chest. "I'm not dealing with racists today, that's ops with Captain America."
Lilian Rook	There is a point where Lilian would take offense and drop straight off of hoveringly disrespectful into ice cold and furious. This is not that point. This is the point where Lilian, very suddenly and very inappropriately, starts laughing. It isn't even an overtly scornful one, though it is certainly at Measurehead's expense; it can sound like silver chimes all it wants, it's still mean. "Oh . . . oh wow . . . I can't . . . I didn't expect that! That's . . . oh gosh I need to collect myself. 'Craniometrically'-- no, any kind of superior at all? You want to talk to me about eugenics? Innate genetic superiority? Christ in heaven I think that just made my night." She comes off the laughter slowly. "There isn't a drop of anything exceptional in you. You're meat. I can tell by looking. Stick with lugging boxes around like a trained bull; it's clearly all you're good for." Now comes the part where, after calling Tony out for trying to be responsible and not escalating to violence, Lilian gets to take credit for not doing so herself. -----[stop]----- Lilian waits until exactly the instant after Tony swings back before metaphorically hitting the trigger. She visually examines the blob of repulsor plume coming out of his hand, and the rippled columns of sonic distortion, like crystal clear blown glass in the air, as if taking in a Michelangelo sculpture. Just as if she were carving one too, she carefully pushes Measurehead's rear foot ahead and out of alignment with his center of gravity, very, very meticulously cranks his loose hand back, and then fishes around for a pair of generic Paladins handcuffs for all the 'cop' stuff going on here, latching one end to his tensed wrist and other to its twin, then hitting the tension reel on the cable. Measurehead can probably break them if he really bulks up and flexes at them, but he sure as hell won't be trading blows with Tony until he figures it out --especially not before tripping over. -----[start]----- In fact, when it comes to blows, Lilian struts calmly out from behind Measurehead, and goes on her merry way off to the crime scene, where the gunshot sound had come from. True to her word, she doesn't hurry in the slightest.
Raphael Cousteau	Obviously we need to discuss Measurehead first. Obviously. The fact of the matter is, while he is The Strongest Racist, he is still just kind of a tattooed man. He is not prepared for the dual assault. The verbal assault leaves him unshaken, mind you. "YOU ARE A WHORE DRESSED UP AS A--" Welp, that was fun. Anyway, time stops. He's obviously unable to do anything about suddenly being blasted by sonic waves, repulsors, and tripped and rearranged in exactly zero seconds. And so, as time starts again, he's slammed back flat on his ass, skidding backwards and eventually smashing into the side of the fountain. There is a long pause. And then, he slowly gets up. It appears round two is starting... .. And stopping. The man in the red beret is back. He's less imposing than you'd think. His ethnicity roughly maps to Mexican. He's in a loose blue shirt, black pants, and has a relaxed, seemingly uncaring expression. His hair falls roughly out of the back of the beret in curls, and his thick mustache drops down beneath his mouth. He smiles. "...Measurehead, let it be, eh? Boss says they aren't Wild Pines. They aren't here to break the strike. They're here because the cops need help." He doesn't regard Lilian, seeming to zero in on Tony. He takes a sip from his flask a moment. "...Alright, boiadeiro," He says--whatever the term is, it seems, at least, for once, to not be a racial epithet. "I'll smooth everything over. You go investigate that lynching, eh? Sure you've got all kinds of important information to figure out. I'm going to make sure the scabs don't break in, now." He moves to help Measurehead to his feet, explaining something quietly. There is nodding. The two are leaving now. Everything is fine. Apparently. And now, the crime investigation where we're investigating crimes, the actual reason anyone bothered with this hellhole. It turns out, at least, Cuno-esse is able to read? Or willing. Whatever the difference between these two things is. "He's just another pig, Cuno! That's what it says! He's sayin' you can't do what you want, Cuno! He's tryin' ta LIMIT YOU!" That seems to rile up the boy a great deal. "What?! Nobody limits the Cuno! Cuno's ridin' the lightning! Cuno's fuckin' invincible!" He pounds on his chest, before throwing another rock at Pazkar. "I'm the king of this Kingdom!" In case it wasn't clear, there's no world where Cuno isn't absolutely on -some- kind of drug. Speaking of drug-addled people in this story, Harry's back up on his feet, making a declaration. "Communism killed him! ..But love did him in." ... "...Yes. I shall write that down," Kim says. He writes something down in his notebook. It's not entirely clear what exactly got written down. "...I believe we should perform a field autopsy report..unless our fellow investigators have some..yet more unorthodox strategies to try."
Pazkar	Well, this is going awkwardly, because Cuno refuses to read what Pazkar is saying. But Cuno-esse...isn't. Pazkar's head swivels in her direction, as he stands up and terminator walks in her direction. When he gets to her, he does not kneel. I will give you one more warning, before I am forced to detain you for . . . violence against an . . . officer? Yes. I will lift you by your lapels and drag you off to the nearest dungeon. To emphasize that he's serious, when Cuno next throws a rock, a clawed gauntlet moves to catch it. It lands in his hand, and with a strong gesture, he crushes it. I do not know that you are Players, after all.
Lilian Rook	Lilian arrives at the crime scene at her own pace. When she gets there, she makes no attempt to hide the evident disgust writ large across her face. Pinching her nose, she stays a respectful distance away from the seven day old corpse, remarking (surprisingly without any nasal tone) "It reeks. Like bile and rotten meat, but also like sour liquor, mildewy sheets, expired medication and someone who hasn't showered in a month." Remarking on the general unpleasantness of the scene is very slightly rich for someone who is currently still smouldering with a localized aura of intensely Wrong. The air around her is somehow synesthetically bloodier than that around the body. She turns her head and spots Cuno immediately, she-- -----[stop]----- Walks wide around the tree, lifts a toe, and decisively sweeps his legs out from underneath him, before returning to exactly her original position. -----[start]----- --asks Kim "Does he usually do this? Or are you two perfect strangers?" tilting her head in Harry's direction. "Anything interesting so far? Other than . . . I see more phenomenally strange body art."
Tony Stark	A jet-powered backhand good enough to lift an entire power armor into the air cracks across Measurehead's face. A blast of pure concussive force fit to stop a speeding vehicle blasts from his palm into Measurehead's chest. Two disorienting, nauseating sonic disruptors thrum against the gorilla's inner ear. And with a snap, some handcuffs just appear around Measurehead's hands. The rest is a blur of everything going Tony's way. There's a quiet chime in Tony's ear, and eyes darting around, his voice croaks out an surprised - "Mark timestamp." "Record marked." drones JARVIS. As he rises to recieve Measurehead for Round Two, Lilian walking to the crimescene, things begin to resolve with the red beret man, earning a lowering of Iron Man's palms. "I told you twice. I don't even know what Wild Pines is." Tony announces as Measurehead is helped up, taking a moment to hear the shouting of RIGHT TO WORK and dealing with union extra-racist Winter Soldiers. "I'm going to buy this entire place by the time I'm done just to cure my headache." Tony groans quietly, striding towards the tree, the body, Harry, Kim, and... ...And Cuno, stomping up thrumming with battle readiness to-- Whatever... this... is. "Updating you day planner, sir." JARVIS adds dryly in response to Tony's mutterances.
Raphael Cousteau	Cuno Fact #1: Cuno doesn't give a fuck. You think Cuno gives a fuck? He doesn't. Still, something peculiar happens, from his perspective. Some girl walks up, acknowledging the universal fact that it--the corpse, and also the pigs, reek. The guy in armour grabs the rock. Crushes it. And then somehow, some way, he's flat on his ass. It can't have been the girl. Therefore, conclusion, it was the guy in the armour. He gets up, slowly. He's stopped grinning. He's looking very calm, now. He takes a long breath. "..Cuno knows to respect that violent shit. You should see Cuno's dad. Cuno's dad doesn't give a shit about -anything-." He seems disturbingly proud of this fact, puffing up his chest. Yeah. You..you could take him back to his dad. That should be fine. Everything should be fine, absolutely. Cuno-esse has done some math here. "I'm gettin' the fuck outta here, Cuno, before they--" She doesn't even finish the sentence. Police that might shoot her are one thing, but this is absolutely off the chain. She's out. Kim Kitsuragi remains stoic through all of this. He observes Lilian's actions. He notes something down in his notebook. "...I have not met the officer before today. We were supposed to meet three days ago, but there were.. scheduling issues," He explains. "...in my brief experience, though, I found him to be reasonably qualified at gathering information." Harry looks to Lilian. He squints a little. HALF LIGHT: Bad news. This woman's bad news. She's too fast. Something's wrong. Run. INLAND EMPIRE: The raven came from beyond the pale, and so she followed. PERCEPTION (Failure): I didn't catch anything. Sorry. LOGIC (Failure): Sometimes kids just fall over when men in armour crush rocks with their hands. You're overthinking this. AUTHORITY: You're a cop. She's stepping in on your turf like she has jurisdiction. Show her who is the LAW! ESPRIT D'CORPS: Kim's amused by all of this, even if he doesn't understand. He also did write down your conclusion. > Okay, but let's say I want to actually get something useful out of her. I think she's important. SUGGESTION: Defer, but be useful. Prove you can do something worth her attention, without wasting words. Think 'cop butler'. Harry may be taking a deep breath, but that Expression has not left his face. It's the same shit-eating grin it has been this entire time. "...Well, we have a physical autopsy to do, ma'am, but he died with a smile on his face. And since I don't think he was into auto-erotic asphyxiation, he was dead before they strung him up." He nods his head. "There's a void in his mouth. It's fascinating. I don't know why yet, I need to look."
Lilian Rook	Lilian lofts an eyebrow at Kim's assertion that Harry is qualified at anything at all, though she remains tastefully silent on the subject, based on the thin premise that Kim has known Harry for at least a few hours longer than she has. "Is that so?" she asks, rhetorically. "Well, I suppose it isn't really your choice either way. By the looks of things, professionals are spread thin here, to say the least." Then Harry turns around and actually says something. Lilian's eyes narrow --harden, even, going from grassy green to cold emerald-- at the expression he looks at her with, but then, by tiny degrees, intrigue slowly wins out over it. "Hmm. Well, I suppose I was worried for nothing that you'd been wasting your time here. I don't envy the coroner on a bloated cadaver like that. In my line, usually there aren't any recognizable bodies left when you get there." She doesn't . . . explain or qualify that statement. At all. "So why string up a dead man? I'd guess a warning or a statement first, but if he's been hanging here for a full week, it seems few people pass this place or even fewer properly care. It also seems unlikely he'd be smiling while violently murdered." She pauses. "Though not entirely impossible, given the . . . eccentricities I've already seen here." Lilian nods slowly, folding her arms. "By all means then, take a look." She seems . . . interested, at least. On the hook. She wants to see where this maniacally grinning amnesiac is going with this. He might be some kind of demented savant, after all. Plus, she seems to expect that something useful will turn up on its own --like someone will hand her the script at any minute. She no longer notices the kids. Just like that, she's turned them off in her brain. They don't exist.
Tony Stark	Striding past Measurehead and into the alley behind the Whirling-in-Rags, Iron Man's gaze once again pans over the scene of the crime, with Cuno on his stupid ass after being... punnched? Shoved? by Pazkar, and Lilian looking extra-smug. "So much for de-escalation." Stark notes with a dry wit. A man scritches into his journal - profiled as Jarvis crawls over the local radio waves for information. Another man has a completely shit-consumptive grin on his face with the cheeks and nose of an alcoholic - this is clearly Officer Cousteau. The body is cut down, and there are tracks all over. "Index me, the works, begin reconstruction." JARVIS rapidly rotates Tony through vision modes, sensors sweeping across the ground, the tree, the body, the armor on the body, the way Cuno hit the snow and the imprint he left. The place is a mess, but data is data. The most immediately available data is, however, tactical - force strength, armor composition, and state of necrosis. "A void?" Stark repeats, pulling up next to Kim and crossing his arms over his plated chest. "Is your partner some sort of psychic? He seems..." Tony doesn't finish the thought. 'Officer Cousteau' is an enigma. "I've noticed people aren't pointing and shouting at me. Are people armored like me common in the area?"
Pazkar	Cuno gives up after the MYSTERIOUS ROCK CRUSHING, and Pazkar thinks he showed his will stronger. Cuno-esse moves to run off, so Pazkar lets her. As Cuno tells him about his dad... I would like to meet him, then, he sounds like a very tough boss. Where can I find your father? After that, though, since he probably can't go immediately, Pazkar turns to the others. An autopsy. How gruesome. I have saws if necessary to cut him open, however. Because he wears the helmet, it's impossible to see Pazkar's face as he says that, and because he doesn't speak, there's no tone of voice. Therefore, it might be intimidating, to someone.
Raphael Cousteau	Kim nods to Lilian. "This area is...not well policed. The Dockworker's Union is generally regarded as the law around here. The RCM is using this opportunity to ...work towards fixing that." But let's talk about Stark for just a moment. Let's take a look. 1) The tree has wooden boards nailed into it, but they couldn't possibly hold an adult. Most likely the belt was thrown around and pulled down to hang the body. 2)The ground has a variety of footprints. It's easy enough to tell which are Lilian's, Harry's, Kims, but there's a mess underneath the body. About eight, of varied weight and sizes. One of them is either a guy who weighs four hundred pounds or so, or he was carrying something. 3)AND NOW THE BODY. 3a) The body shows lividity suggesting that yes, he's been hanged. Hooray! Also, he's been decomposing for a week. Hoo...ray. 3b) He's dead. He's an ex-guard. Absolutely no longer of this world. He's gone. He is absolutely not just resting. 3c) That said, there's no signs of struggle. Remember how Har^H^H^H Officer Cousteau said he was happy when he died? That's weirdly holding up here. Normally when people are hung, they scrabble and struggle. Maybe he was unconscious? 3d) There's a chunk of metal in his throat. 3da) that's a bullet. 3db) this guy was shot, then hanged. 3dc) there's something 800% fucky going on with the lividity, but that might just be because body hanging for seven days. It's kinda filled with weird sludge at this point. 4) The armor is interesting. It seems like fragile ceramics, but the way it's designed would clearly distribute any kinetic force almost perfectly evenly across its entire surface. It's not just bulletproof, you could stand in front of a gatling gun and feel like it was a full body massage. It may even be on par, at least defensively, with Stark's own suit. Exciting Cuno Facts are Lilian's wheelhouse to explain, however. Kim raises a hand. "He is not my partner. We are from different precincts. As to any supra-natural abilities he may or may not possess, I am not qualified to talk on that subject." He looks at Stark thoughtfully, before writing something down. "As for your armor, it resembles the Fairweather Ceramics common with high-end mercenary groups, though it's traditionally worn under clothing." There is a shake of the head. "...We do not cut open corpses at this stage. We are interested purely in external damage, for the most part. We leave the rest to processing back at the station."
Tony Stark	Data floods past Tony's eyes. Some of it is filed away into an impromptu coroner's report as the disgusting flesh is analyzed via delicate digital cross-sectioning, material analysis and particle bombardment giving a series of active notices. Like: Wow, Tony is super glad he's breathing filtered air. Also: Wow, the hobocop was right? "I'm detecting... Eight sets of footprints. One carrying something heavy. The victim? Cause of death is... Gunshot wound to the head. No struggle. Armor composition is ceramic, but it's got a similar effective armor deflection density close to what I'm using - that's serious hardware. I'm surprised it's not gone." Iron Man turns to Kim. "Armor like mine is common with mercenaries? That actually explains the enormous bouncer they tried to stop me with. Force compensation, ballistic point diffusion, I'm impressed. More impressed you're not wearing something like this, Detective." Stark gestures at the body. "Rook, unless you've got a magical analytic to go through, or the big guy has something to check, I suggest that Officer Cousteau inspect the body's mouth. Maybe his..." Stark won't say it. "... Investigative skill will learn something. The insides of the body are a sludge, anyway."
Pazkar	I see. Pazkar says, in response to not being allowed to cut open the corpse. He's honestly happy. That's gross. When Tony says that the insides of the body are sludge, Pazkar turns to him and the others. Does that usually happen within this timeframe? Sludge, I mean.
Lilian Rook	When Pazkar brings up saws, Lilian is instantly on the draw, with "Those saws are going to spray offal absolutely everywhere. Please don't. These are new boots." The fact that Pazkar doesn't want to do so in the first place is lost on her, due to the total lack of tone inherent in anything he did or said. Her response to Tony confirming that 'Cousteau' is correct, though, is quite different. Her pitch rises, her tone softens, her posture tilts, and her finger taps against the inside of her arm. "Oh? Interesting. With that in mind, my initial read is that he was almost certainly shot unawares, or executed after having 'already won' in some fashion. Mercenary technology would match up a considerably more lethal and politically motivated adversary than a dock lynching." She blinks, then stops in mid-train, lowering her head and pressing a fingertip to the bridge of her nose, as if not quite sure as if she's about to have a headache, or thinking very intensely upon how to explain something to someone she'd rather not talk to. After a few seconds of silence, without opening her eyes, she comes out with "Which is very bad. Nobody runs this place. Nobody can. A collective of special interests in freefall, trying to knit a parachute on the way down, but all so tangled up in each other they can't pull a single thread out. I'd take this very seriously. An instigation, or maybe an omen. And . . ." Finally, she looks up, but directly to Kim. The look on her face is eerily almost sympathetic, yet not even the slightest bit apologetic. "You said you loved this place because of it, right? Maybe start thinking about . . . what shape you'll put it away in. What it will look like after you're done with 'this'. How people will remember it, I think." Continuing to not qualify anything, she waves off the mention of the autopsy. "Agreed. Leave it with whatever coroner the police here have on call. Let them earn their paycheque. Your efforts are going to be better put towards armed and motivated men, not corporate strikers and town nutjobs."
Raphael Cousteau	"Despite it." Kim corrects. He closes his eyes, looking down. "..But I don't discuss politics at work, ma'am." INLAND EMPIRE: The tangled skein is no clearer for added thread. It is that moment that Harry starts to shiver. His gaze is distant. He's looking through everyone. "S..so cold..." He says. The cold winds of Revachol blow through the warp gate, escaping the net of the endless grey clouds that defy life itself. They sputter and gasp and yet reform, dancing across infinities yet unknown. Harry's visibly shuddering now. A massive, shining castle juts out of the ground. It wasn't there merely weeks ago. INLAND EMPIRE: The new life grows from the fallen seed. Fires burn alongside electric lights. The castle is as a sword, thrust deeply into the earth, sticking out in defiance of..something. Ebony and ivory paths weave a mandala upon which motor carriages and horses weave with balloon-less aerostatics. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Most modern aircraft have balloons, due to difficulties maintaining velocity travelling between isolas. > Wait, what's an isola? ENCYCLOPEDIA: ...Yep, sorry. Food grows from a tower, and knowledge gathers in yet another. This is something massive, beyond anything you have known. Harry falls to his knees a moment, before slowly getting back up. Harry shakes his head from his reverie. "...I'll go check the corpse now. You..you all have something more important to do, don't you?" The strange, grinning man, even despite his obvious discomfort, starts idly playing with the jaw of the dead man. Perhaps it is best to leave him to..whatever it is he's doing.