“I believe you,” Weld spoke, “I’ve read your file, and this isn’t your M.O.”

Yeah.

“Excellent, excellent.  I commend you,” Trickster tipped his hat, “Then we’ll be on our way?”

Hehe. As if you aren’t still wanted villains.

“No.  But if you come into custody-”

“You’ll arrest us for any number of other criminal charges we’ve got waiting.  And you can’t promise that one of your superiors won’t try to stick us with the blame for this.”

Sounds about right.

Weld frowned.

“Let us go.  Whatever happened here, it deserves your full attention.  You should be trying to find and capture the real criminals.  This guy here was still alive when we arrived.”  Trickster pointed at the man with the chain limbs.

He does have a point, the Wards are probably better off focusing on the matter at hand, whatever the fuck that actually is.

My guess is on Fenrir’s Chosen. Hookwolf is among the characters I’d most expect to be willing to do something like this.

“Can’t do that.  You’re still suspects, regardless of how much this deviates from your usual methods.”

Also fair.

Each had received a different kind of treatment.  To their left was a corpse that had been flayed, the gender no longer identifiable.  Directly opposite their group was the corpse of an obese woman, charred black.  Completing the scene was the body of what appeared to be a homeless man, or one of the people who’d been rendered homeless by the recent disaster, judging by the layers of clothing he wore.  His limbs had been severed at each joint, then reconnected so each was joined by a short, foot-long length of chain.

Sheesh. Someone’s got a flair for dramatic desecration.

Nails placed through the chain kept him in position, head hanging, a macabre puppet with an overlong body.  The chains jangled and swung in the wind.

Only thing missing is a cross.

Occupying the same building as the corpses was a familiar group.  Trickster, Sundancer and Ballistic stood beneath the corpses.

What.

What are you guys doing here? And why are the heroes talking like they aren’t?

Did the Travelers find the corpses and report them, despite the risk of their own arrest?

A winged figure that might have been a gargoyle, demon or dragon was clutching to the sides of an empty window frame with three talons, the other reaching toward the homeless man.  Genesis.

Right, that was the cape name of the pseudo-shifter.

“Pardon the cliche, but this isn’t what it looks like,” Trickster spoke.

Yeeah, this really isn’t something I’d expect from the Travelers.

The scene was set up in the husk of a building.  Walls loomed on three sides, but there was no roof remaining.  The floor was uneven, composed of layers of broken boards, shattered drywall and chunks of concrete.

This city is such a mess right now.

Yet there’s no way of knowing whether or not this building was like this before.

“There’s two more crime scenes like this?” Clockblocker asked, eyes wide.  He craned his neck upward to look above them.

…alright, sounds like that was an even newer development than I thought it might be.

“Yeah,” Weld spoke.

“It’s the middle of the day,” Kid Win spoke, “Broad daylight.”

Huh. Someone destroying buildings… stealthily?

Clockblocker looked at the overcast sky above.  Not quite daylight. And people weren’t around.  It was still ballsy, and more than a little scary.

On each of the three interior walls of the older building was a body, twenty feet above the ground.

Oh.

Yikes.

I haven’t liveblogged since last year, wow. Let’s finish up 9.3!