Scene #3739:

Owner	Pose
Nightblind	STONEGATE CITY -- A port city on the mouth of a river, spreading like wings to either side, the inner-city stretching across a chain of islands -- natural and manmade, freeway and bridges, commuter rails and broken streets criss-crossing over the buildings in various states of urban decay. Sirens wail in the January night, blue and red lights splitting the orange light pollution on either side as police cars roar down the street. THe building that it happened in was cordoned off, police tape and heavy plastic sheeting hung up to try and keep anyone from making their way in, discouraging people from checking out the damage or getting pictures. It was on top of the adjacent building that NIghtblind was keeping watch, cowl over her face, her digital eyes overseeing the area in the blues and oranges of the gradient. <<Are you sure this is a good idea, Els?>> comes a voice over her comm, <<The last time you involved Unionites on your own turf...>>
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	Normally, Nasa would be incredibly lazy and just hover around an inch off the ground. She can't easily do that in a mostly normal city though, people might freak out and think she's a monster, and then she might get shot at by police or superheroes or something like that. Which is an entirely un-ideal situation to go into. As such, she found a random picture of some clothing, and then performed a glamour over herself. As such, the woman that makes her way to where the directions lead her is much less... impressive and intimidating compared to Nasa. She's a dark-skinned woman, wearing thick-rimmed black glasses, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and wearing some rather... well. Somewhat fashionable kind of clothing? (OOC: http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1081881 ) And she is definitely not hovering. She's just walking calmly. When she gets to the proper building and has climbed all the stairs and ladders, she makes her way calmly towards Nightblind. "Hello~. Don't mind the illusion, it's Nasa." She says cheerfully towards Nightblind, her eyes glowing lightly as she looks around, already beginning to try to get a sense for anything that felt 'wrong' magically... or really anything that just made her rogue senses tingle that something was wrong, any details on the ground that seemed off, and similar. Likely the plastic sheeting would make that difficult until they got closer, though.
Scarlet Everille	Climbing on top of buildings is not something that Scarlet is in the habit of doing. She's not going to climb all of those stairs just to inevitably climb back down anyways when they have to go to the actual site of the alleged crime. Instead, she stays strictly at street level, though doing so might normally be unwise, as she has yet to change out of her Heliosanctus uniform, having just gotten out of school for the day. It doesn't look that out of character for an expensive college, or perhaps highschool getup, so walking around at night in this dilapidated looking city on her own is probably a bad idea. Or rather, it would be were she actually alone. It's typical habit for any real magus to have a familiar or two accompanying them at all times, and being of the calibre she is, Scarlet has two of them today, though hidden in phase space as usual, for obvious reasons, as are the rest of her active and passive wards. She uses the local Union band instead to communicate with the two on the roof, sizing up the building ahead of her rather than the one behind, barely noticing the police tape. Rather than smelling magic, the particulars of Conceptualization school magic focus on sight as the most basic and easy to maintain form, and so her eyes almost seem to glow the colour of her name in the dark as she shifts through increasingly obscure spectrums like optician's lenses to see if she can pick up anything from the outside. "Nineteen hours will have probably scrubbed the specifics, but my usual limit is about thirty six before it's too trace to pick up on. Either way, isolating the magus responsible by his magical signature is one of my specialties. Analytical and counter magic are my two best fields. Is this place under watch, or can we waltz right in?"
Nightblind	NIghtblind gives a nod as Nasa approaches, drawing to a stand as she loops an arm around the edge of the fire escape, and skillfully makes her way down, hopping form platform to platform around the outside, and once her boots hit the alleyway, she comes around the side of the building, approaching the mage. The cool blue of an LED lights up beneath her hood, but no details of her face can be seen. "The front is secured by a police watch. There is a secondary enterance. This way." she motions, trusting Nasa would be follow her as she comes aroudn to a side door, pushing some debris aside before she shoulders it open, and makes her way in. She moves without any source of light guiding her, unless you count the sparking, flickering EXIT signs. It's a brief walk through a narrow hallway before it opens up to what might have been a lobby for an apartment building at one time. The counter to one side is smashed into splinters, as if something very heavy fell on it -- or hit it. There was an outline of a body on the ground, very thin. Too thin to be an adult human, too long to be a child. The place /reeks/ of dark energy. There was some powerful, contract demonic things going on here. Dark magic, something strong.
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	Well. That looked wrong and smelled out of place. And it just appeared! A person! Who ... well, was kind of making her a bit hungry. It was quite likely that it was Scarlet, but she wanted to make sure first, waiting for her to finish her examination. She leans over the edge to peer down at Scarlet for a bit. Hmmm. Maybe. She straightens back up, turning towards Nightblind as she begins to move, giving a slow nod. She begins to make her way after her. As her suspicions are confirmed though... she could now identify one more smell and feeling to ignore. She twitches her ears thoughtfully as she continues after Nightblind, making her way through that dark hallway. Luckily even in an illusion she could see in the dark, or she might have been tripping over things! "...This smells ... very unholy and dark. The smell on you is like... nothing compared to this." She mumbles thoughtfully as she slowly makes her way along. Hmm. ANd... something was outlined there. That was... hmm. "...Definitely not humans that did this..." She muses out loud, taking deft footsteps to avoid stepping on anything particularly dangerous or threatening. "..." She turns slightly towards Nightblind, stepping closer rather suddenly with simple intent. To begin to sniff at her some more, intent on 'feeling' her more. To make sure that the dark feeling wasn't the same. She didn't smell strong enough to be the source... but there was a chance she could be a potential future victim.
Scarlet Everille	It seems clear that Scarlet has little regard for police; not in terms of respect, but in how little she seems to care about their presence. After all, how often have the police in any world actually inconvenienced her? She seems happy to simply completely ignore the mention of a blockade and the presence of police tape, following along with the absolutely not suspicious at all cloaked, hooded and armed girl who can't be much older than her. The dark isn't really an impediment to her either, but for different reasons than cybernetic eyes. Her face flickers with the ghost of a frown as she sees the shattered counter, seemingly more concerned with that than the silhouette of a corpse in the dark. "Nothing from the outside, but it's very strong in here. I suppose this confirms your suspicions." she says aloud, carefully stepping over the splintered wreck and moving towards the body, leaning forward with her hands on her knees to closely examine it, the LED in the front of her smartcollar flashing on to light it up more naturally. "I'm not experienced with traditional demons. I mostly deal with the kind of morally neutral cosmic entities. Nobodies, Witches, Shadows, that kind of thing. That said however, this seems like strictly Adjuration type magic. Someone was trying to bind or barter with whatever was here. Doesn't look like it worked, at first glance at least."
Nightblind	Closer inspection, there are occasional droplets, bloodspray of some sort, that have eaten through wood, tile and glass. Then, as they come around, the larges 'dip' into the demonic energy reading was from what essentially was a roughly human-sized hole in the flor, eaten through tile, concrete, straight down into the basement. "According to the report at the bank, oen fo the remaining robbers absorbed something from the other. It was at that point that he gained super-strength and tenacity, and his blood became caustic, burning through The Hulk's hands." Nightblind explains. "I thought after a while it was a one-time thing... but this...?" she motions, and looks to the mage and the fae. "This is from above my frame of reference."
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	At the very least, Scarlet just felt and smelled Wrong. She didn't smell like demons. Hmm. Well, the magic was strong still, so being able to use detection magic would hopefully be able to track it to the source. She shifts her gaze towards Scarlet briefly from her likely invasion of Nightblind's personal space. "Can you trace it to the source? It's actually too strong for me to tell that much specifics." Nasa says towards Scarlet, her gaze briefly flickering about to look for any obvious signs of disruption. And for traces of the remaining caustic alkaline death and destruction type things. She pauses, listening silently as Nightblind explains the situation, her gaze shifting towards him thoughtfully. Hmmm. "So... he exploded afterwards?" She muses out loud, eyes half-lidding thoughtfully, looking down some of the holes. "Definitely magic, then... not some sort of potion. Hmm." She shifts thoughtfully as she continues to sniff at Nightblind. "You seem unlikely to explode, thankfully. You don't smell the same way."
Scarlet Everille	That frown returns in a more pronounced form at seeing the human shape in the dark is not a corpse, but something actually more ominous. She stands back up again, shifting her balance away from the hole so she isn't leaning right over it, unbuckling her messenger bag and reaching for one of the many interior pockets. "Well, I can tell you the demon itself didn't make the hole. The magic is weakest here. Either this poor sod was the ground zero for an explosion of some sort, or a possessive demon left his body and it degraded into some kind of base. Anything in a human body shouldn't normally be over 7.4 Ph. Not nearly enough to do this. I'd guess he was already consumed from the inside out rather than it just spitefully polymorphing him." She takes a few more steps back, producing a slim, silver canister of something with a hidden spray nozzle, shaking it up a little bit before firing a thin mist of some kind of silver oil over the ground, tracing a circle around herself with surprising geometric perfection. "By that description I'd normally assume the demon was still possessing him and did this under its own power, but with the lack of presence and the fact that simply bleeding wouldn't make a person-shaped hole like this, I doubt it's still the same host. I'll be able to find out in a minute, though I don't like the idea of going to the basement." She swiftly fills in the area around her feet, filling a complex stencil of overlapping, interconnected conduits and circuits by memory, before putting the bottle away and closing her eyes to concentrate. The presence of her own magic invades the dark presence shrouding the room, contesting the lingering unholy with a wave of the Other. The air ripples as a pulse of magical sonar passes through it, reflecting off of all available surfaces, picking up the fine traces left upon them, and coming straight back to her, giving her a precise fingerprint of how much of what type has been concentrated where. The circle slowly starts to burn up beneath her, silver oil gradually consumed by embers of what looks to be UV coloured fire, seething with bubbles as if burning deep water.
Nightblind	For what she's worht, Nightblind just steps back and out of the way of the supernatural types, feeling a faint aversion to the whole business. She tilts her head, watching a moment as the two sniff about (both literally and figuratively)... and then pauses as Nasa returns to sniff at her. She edges away, a little uncomfortable. "I'm not magical." she re-affirms to her, crossing her arms as she looks back over the crimescene, recording it for records. Maybe there was something her handler could see back at the lab... The vigilante takes a step to the side, observing the circle as Scarlett sprays with surprisingly perfect geometry. You go, girl. And she speaks up again. "The basement doesn't appear to have anything. Once it passed through the floor, it appeared to fizzle out... but if it's magical and demonic in origin..." she states, gives a shrug. "The space below is used by a church for prayer services."
Scarlet Everille	Well, the imprint that comes back to Scarlet like a layer of fingerprinting tape says otherwise, but there's really nothing to be gained by arguing with Nightblind over it. If she says she isn't she has her reasons; or she's completely unaware, in which case now probably isn't a good time to bring it up. As the last traces of silver burn off and evaporate from the floor, Scarlet opens her eyes, some of the red luminance dying from them as she looks back around. "No, this is pretty weak. I don't think a demon itself was out and about here. Someone was obviously using energy related to it though. Its actual presence might be masked by the host until he exercises some of its power. It might even be a voluntary fusion with all this contract magic in use, or else simply someone contracted to the demon in exchange for power, rather than it being implanted into him. The counter being smashed to pieces seems to fit with superhuman strength at least. Do we know who actually died here? Would this have been a random bystander? A policeman? A partner? A rival?" Her eyes flicker back down the hole as she hears mention of a church. "And is the church warded at all? I can imagine it fizzling up when it hits a holy place of worship. If it's a lived-in area and not just some dirty storage then it might be worth going downstairs. There's not much useful information up here."
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	"That's... kind of odd that the demon did not make it, since the spot where the crash hit is... not human shaped. It's almost more elf shaped; too slender to be human, but too tall to be human child." Nasa says, looking at the spot where it impacted. "...Though, perhaps... shriveled up corpse. Ah, yes. Of course. When he exploded, he lost most of his mass and became tiny." She says thoughtfully, her ears twitching thoughtfully. As the spray begins, Nasa hop-skips out of the way, nose twitching. She turns her face to sneeze lightly, before looking back towards Scarlet. As the magic begins to invade the dark presence... she shfits a little bit. Ugh. She was hungry. And it smelled good. She takes a slow breath, averting her eyes from the fire, instead focusing on nightblind. "The fact that I smell darkness on you means you should get that checked out then, if you're not magical. That means that there may be a spell or curse on you that you're not aware of." Nasa states bluntly towards Nightblind, her lips twitching as she sniffs at her some more thoughtfully. "It could just be lingering darkness from being close to this, but it smells different." She says thoughtfully. The mention of the fizzling gets a small nod. "I see! So it was almost definitely magical in origin, so quite likely that any examinations would just point to 'demons'." She says thoughtfully, tapping her chin a bit. "That sounds pretty likely, I can vaguely feel contract magic here... I'm a little in tune with it, because, well... fae." She says, though doesn't go into more detail than that. "It's a lot more subtle than the giant unholy energy though." She peers at the holes thoughtfully, idly beginning to measure one or two of them with a hand to see if any were small enough. "Maybe the wards picked up something. Have you memorized how the energy here feels?" She asks towards Scarlet.
Nightblind	"It's a little church. Some form of Orthodox." Nightblind replies to Scarlet, rubbing the back of her head a moment as she glances around the room. "The identified victim was a drug dealer, some minor league kid. graduated to pushing pharmaceuticals on the street." she draws herself back up. "Checking the security cams, this unfortunate guy was probably Liam Smith, a premed student at Stonegate University." she replies as she circles around the human-shaped hole in the floor. "He never came out of the building." she states. "There's an enterance to the church, but it's throguh an elevator -- and there's no power at th e moment." she states, and she pauses, and turns back to Nasa as she speaks up, and the fae might be able to /feel/ the stare from her. "I'll.. go have that checked. Thank you, Nasa." she states, and she cracks her knuckles. "Need to get downstairs?" she inquires.
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	"...Do we know what drug ring they work with? Rarely do they sell alone, they probably had contacts...they're probably all together." Nasa says thoughtfully, arms crossing over her chest. She hums lightly. "I can probably get through a hole, but you two can't get that small... I can move an elevator though, so long as everything's working still." Nasa says with a flashed grin. "It's just moving metal around, right?" Metal was a part of the natural world -- she could move metal. Maybe not as well as Toph or someone else more specialized, but she could do it! "...Or we could maybe break the ground but that might make the police less than thrilled with us." Pause. "...Less than they already will be probably."
Scarlet Everille	"Well that leaves two choices. Either he wound up getting aced by the competition, or someone's using a demon to try and enact vigilante justice; ruling out a personal acquaintance at least, since I'm sure the police have already investigated that. It's about the only thing they have to go on really." She looks to Nasa, closing up her bag again and dialing down the light. "I have more than enough information. It's still very strong here. I should be able to pick him, or it, out from a crowd easily, which I suppose is the important part. I'd most certainly recommend against caving in the floor though. Aside from tampering with a crime scene being a federal offense, I'd rather not throw the police under the bus just for trying. They could always find something useful on their own, with lots of luck." "I would absolutely like to see this church though. If you can move the elevator safely, I'd take it over climbing through this hole. It'd be best to check whether this world has such a thing as a holy presence to match. If the church is completely mundane then we can probably assume involvement from outside. I wouldn't rule out another world's dark magic to be repelled even by an only symbolic Christian symbol, but it could be coincidence as easily as not."
Nightblind	"Most of the drug runners are from a paticular gang, but they've kept mum to police. Something's got them scared." Certainly not the heavily armed arrow-weilding vigilante. No. Couldn't be that. "As long as we don't mess with their crime scene too much, they'll be fine. They still have some good people on the force." she admits quietly, turning and walking back to the hallway. "I don't see a bunch of lowlives trying to use demons to try and out-do one another. It seems like it's much easier to get a hold of a gun..." she begins, and heaves a sigh, and she grabs onto one door of the elevator shaft, and with a metallic sounding grunt, she pushes it open. It slides open, a half foot at a time until there's a good three feet of space. She glances down, and then glances up, and gives a little hop. "Basement. Lady's clothing, Churches and possessions."
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	"I can move it safely for us. I don't know about for the machinery, but it should be easy enough to just manually force the cords to do their thing." Nasa responds to Scarlet. "Possibly they also turned to demons out of desperation or ignorance as well. Someone feeding them information that they don't know what they're actually doing with." Nasa says with a thoughtful frown. Hmm. She makes her way towards the now-open-elevator door, lifting her hand. "This much dark energy in one area is likely to draw more darkness." Nasa mumbles softly. She lifts her hand, which flares into life, a soft purple-green glow coming from her hand. A warm, bolstering energy filling the area around her just with its activation, and any potted plants that had survived the attack would seem greener. She holds her hand out, beginning to draw the unholy energy into her hand... while her other hand points towards the cord/wiring of the elevator to begin to make it move and bring it to their floor. "I'll leave enough of the energy that if the police happen to have magically sensitive people, they can still pick up on the energy. But this much unholy energy in one area is likely to spawn a curse. And that would just complicate things."
Scarlet Everille	"Easier, but guns don't dissolve people. If someone hypothetically did have a demon or demonic powers on their side, it would make for a decisive advantage over either an enemy or competition. If they're all part of the same gang... I don't suppose you keep tabs on individuals from this city's underworld do you? I think this does need a little bit of traditional investigation if we want the most out of it, even if it is a demon from somewhere else entirely." Despite her casually analytical words, Scarlet watches Nightblind pull the elevator door open with a great deal of interest, wincing slightly at the creak and squeal of protesting metal, though she waits for Nasa to begin actually moving it before getting on, and even then only after testing it with her heel. "I'll take you on your word about the curse." she says on the way. "I wouldn't put it past something like this, even if it does feel very unstructured by now. Entropy seems to have broken it down." The AR display from her collar comes up; the magus flipping through pages of simulated screen space with small gestures of her right hand. "I'm going to encrypt the video of this one and review it later. We'll see." She then steps out into the bottom floor as soon as the car has stopped moving, like a celebrity getting out of their limo after the chauffeur has opened the door for them. "Let's see what we have here..."
Nightblind	"... the last thing I need to deal with are supernatural thugs." Nightblind mutters bitterly to herself as she steps out, and she steps to the side, crossing her arms not not willing to go much further into the worship space. It's a smallish church, probably for a small community. There are folding and stacking chairs in various states of repair. There's a whiteboard with 'THIS WEEK'S SERVICE: BEING GOOD SAMARITANS & THE VIRTUOUS' written in neat, black marker on the board. The pulpit was pulled to the side, only a spot or two of corrosion on it. The feeling here is, opposed to the upstairs, warm and inviting. Holy and light. There were Good Things that happened in this room. Minus the vaguely human-shaped hole at the ceiling.
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	"I can probably make some thug not ready for me pee their pants for you if you need to get them to say important things." Nasa says cheerfully towards Scarlet, flashing a sharp-toothed grin towards Scarlet, as the elevator slides down, and her Hand of Growth flickers out of existence again. She spent most of the trip down with her ears folded down, as the elevator likely didn't like being forcibly moved. "Of... oh, one of the camera things?" Nasa asks towards Scarlet. "Are you one of those mages that can use technomagic?" Nasa asks curiously. Once they were down to the bottom floor though, Nasa shifted a bit, sniffing at the air. Holy. Light. Good things. "...This place definitely has Good power in it." Nasa mumbles softly, stepping out into the church. "It's almost a pity that the body fell through and damaged this place. Hopefully the repairs do not deminish the good within this place." She says quietly, making her way towards the corroded pupit, brushing a hand over the corroded spots. Probably corroded by years of use. "Is this place normally still in use? If it's not, that it's still this holy is somewhat of a feat."
Scarlet Everille	Scarlet's eyes flick from feature to feature, clearly totally unimpressed by the humble, lower class, North American make=do for a church as compared to the ancient pieces of art from all around her home continent, but obviously not paying much attention to any of them anyways. Her gaze glosses right over the board and goes in search of jeudo-christian symbology. Surely someone's hung a cross on a wall somewhere or left a rosary on a chair. It wouldn't be much of a church without an object of worship. At the very least, she can tell there is most definitely some sort of conceptually opposed force here, but she's never been one for black and white concepts of good and evil. In fact, this room feels more alien to her than the one above. "Yes actually. Can you not? It makes life much more convenient for me. It's a lot easier to have everything downloaded than lugging a library with me everywhere I can go, not to mention laser stenciling circles." She immediately demonstrates by outstretching her arm in front of her, holding the back of her hand level with the diode, where an extremely complex radial of overlapping alchemical symbology is projected onto her skin in pale blue light, causing her hand to pulse with faint magic a moment later, sweeping it over the room like a metal detector in cursory examination. "Unfortunately, you may have to deal with exactly that." She says to Nightblind. If this world has some kind of native divine power, then whatever is wrong here could very well have originated here as well if you're unlucky. At the very least though, we already know what will counter it, or at least shield against it, though I'd likely stick to invoking the power of Christ and the Trinity and all that instead of hoping it works for all religions. If this is something never seen before, we might be able to cut it off at the source. I doubt demon summoning is a common talent here. If you remove whoever it is from the equation and confiscate his materials, you won't be seeing any more of them. You say Doctor Banner fought one of these entities?"
Nightblind	There was a cross, just a simple one, hanging above the whiteboard, but the cross itself was very, very old. A little placard identifies it as from a slave's church on a plantation, liberated and brought north after the civil war. Apparently it's been in hte minister's family for years. The space is used every day. The church acts as a daycare. The minister's wife runs it for the low-income moms in the parish. Services are Saturday at seven in the evening, and Sundays at eight and ten thirty. They skipped daycare today, though, but only because they turned the power off to stop people from coming up the elevator." she explains. And she pauses, and though her blind eyes don't see the magic, she can feel it... and she suddenly fels ery keen not to go further into the room, and instead leans on the walla s they do their investigation. "Tony Stark, Toph Beifong and Dr. Banner arrived to a bank robbery where one of the robbers drew... something from another and was able to execute feats of super-strength. The Hulk's hands were apparently chemical burned... but I wasn't on site until after the perp was..." she motions to the hole in the ceiling. "Gone."
Na`Sabal-Une Fang	"In my world, all of the moving atomatons are golems, they are animated by magic and... occasionally the gnomes make their strange... uhm..." Nasa taps her lip thoughtfully. "Clock...work. Yes. Powered by gears and springs and keys." Nasa gives another nod, humming thoughtfully as she listens to her. "I see. Those sound useful. I have adjusted to making use of a computer." Nasa murmurs as she watches her make the alchemical symbology. She watches quietly, her head tilting very slightly. "Some sort of device... probably a catalyst for the demonic magic. Maybe it absorbed his friends' soul when it drew something out of him." She says thoughtfully, her arms crossing over her chest as she thinks on that. The church was still often-used, but unfortunately in a basement of another building. "...This bank is peculiar. It has a church in its basement." She comments idly. "I wonder if that's ... part of ... the kind of ... reasoning behind the attack. There was another event like this that happened before... what was the situation around that?" She asks curiously, looking towards Nightblind, noting that she didn't go further into the room. Hmm. That darkness she'd smelled on her earlier. Was Nightblind of an unholy nature? She was a Unionite though. So for now, she just filed the information away for later.
Scarlet Everille	"If we're not dealing with possessions in the end, another theory I could forward would be that a small ring of cooperators have the backing of a benefactor with links to the occult. It could be that several of them have been granted demonic power, and are sharing it or transferring it to one another. What happened to the criminal that had this 'something' drawn out of him?" Scarlet's gaze eventually drifts to the crucifix, and then straight to the placard, able to read the engraved text even at a distance. "I suppose it's not surprising in the end..." she murmurs. "I don't suppose there's much reason for anyone to come back here, is there? Not with the police around at least. I don't expect a repeat strike at this building, so they'll have moved on and planned somewhere else. Unfortunately, this city is a little too big for me to search even by familiar. You're going to need to do some traditional investigation on who might be linked to the victim and isolate some likely suspects. Either that or catch another one in the act. I'll be happy to show up in either case, so long as there aren't bullets flying every which way. Things will go much quicker once I can isolate a sample of what we're looking for."