Double Time (Silver Scion, AAT, Stutter)

A heavy rain beat down on the warm Georgia night, making the humidity all the more overbearing. The street lights flickered but in general, few people were out walking in this neighborhood at this time of night. Not that it was quiet. The sounds of car horns and tires splashing in the gathering puddles echoed down the streets from the more crowded cultural area more than a few blocks away. It always amazed Stanton how much difference just a few blocks could make. Not far from here the Georgia nightlife was bustling, even in the rain. People moved, umbrellas in hand, with coats over skimpy outfits as they bounced from bar to bar. While over here there was relative calm besides the dull thuds of Stanton's worn out shoes against the sidewalk.

He pulled his hood up over his head, both to protect from the rain and to hide his identity somewhat. It wouldn't help so much in that regard. He was fairly certain there weren't many other metahumans leaving fading trails of themselves I their wake. But at least if someone saw him, they wouldn't see his face. That at least was comforting to him for some reason. Maybe it meant his identity wouldn't be associated with what he was about to do. It would be an unnamed metahuman, not Stanton Stacy that had committed the crime. Resigning himself that that must be the reason, he approached the closed down gun store.

For a place packing a super much heat as it did, the place wasn't extremely well protected. Stanton knew, he'd scouted the place earlier on the day after being denied a gun. It appeared CHRONOS had been extremely thorough in wiping his identity. Neither his military ID or his civilian one passed the necessary checks meaning it would be illegal for him to even own a firearm. Supposing that was what he got for trusting people, Stanton raised his elbow to the glass pane of the door and gave it a quick thrust. His arm went through easily enough, the scratches from the broken glass quickly dissipating into his past. Reaching through the new opening he found the locking mechanism and opened the door.

Immediately an alarm started to sound. That was to be expected, the police wouldn't want to know if someone was trying to steal any of what could be found in this place. Stanton's paranoia flew in to full panic as the sirens blared. His eyes swerved the store landing on a gas case displaying pistols. Once more breaking the glass with his elbow, he'd reach in and pull out a 9 mm and a box of ammo. They would be all he'd need. Then stuffing his hand into his pocket, he would produce a wad of crumpled bills amounting to little more than thirty dollars. It wasn't enough to pay for what he took, but it was all he had and his conscious wouldn't let him leave the owner of the store out to dry. Quickly loading the pistol, he'd stuff it in his hoodie's pocket and book it out of the store, Hopi g that hed be gone before the cops showed up.

The next day...

Israel Knight sat cross-legged on a soft rug in his hotel room in California, the light of the sun filtering into the room through the closed blinds. His eyes were closed too, but he could see through them, just as he could see through the ceilings, walls, and floors of the building wherein he resided.

He drew in a long controlled breath before exhaling just as slowly. Then he heard a voice in his head.

"Agent Knight. Come in. Over." The voice said.

His eyes remained closed as he undid the EM locked pouch that contained his badge, retrieving it and pressing its center.

"This is Agent Knight. I read you. Over." He replied, speaking in a subsonic whisper.

"We have another mission ready for you. Over."

"I'm ready to accept said mission. What do you have for me? Over."

"We suspect a Meta was involved in gun theft; only one gun was stolen and they've already recovered it three times over... Over."

Israel opened his eyes. "Interesting. Where am I headed? Over." He said.

"Atlanta, Georgia. Take flight 387. Boarding in 8 minutes. Over."

"On my way. Over and out."

Israel smiled, rising to his feet in a single, fluid motion and replacing his badge into its pouch at his side before striding out of his hotel and locking it behind him. He had no need to pack anything; he always traveled light. Very light.

After heading downstairs, he turned in his key and went straight for the nearby airport.

Atlanta, here we come...

AAT-08317 sat with his briefcase opened to him. In the black foam rested a series of shapes that took the form of a rifle, to a pistol, a radio to a collection of grenades. He hands of the assassin curled around a familiar object, the black nanoweave gloves brushing against the surface of a rifle as they lifted the object into the air. The VSSK Vychlop sniper rifle was a rather peculiar rifle: designed not only as a heavy weapon, capable of breaking heavy armour or penetrating the cover that its targets hid behind, but also held an integral suppressor. The seven kilogram rifle felt fairly light in the hands of AAT-08317, but the assassin knew quite well if not held properly, it could be awkward to fire or use.

Removing a five-round box magazine from the briefcase, the assassin inserted it as he primed the rifle. Slowly, AAT-08317 attached it to the back of his nanoweave suit before he removed his sidearm: the Cz-45. Loading in a fifteen-round magazine into it, the assassin slowly holstered it into a pouch on the right of his utility belt. Before removing the four nonlethal grenades contained within, as he attached them in the appropriate order on his utility belt. Collecting his spare magazines, he secured them to a series of straps and loops about his body before he turned on the radio attached to his suit.

Slowly AAT-08317 approached the apartment window, as he opened it and crawled through and out onto the fire escape. The assassin quickly ascended to the rooftop, looking across the cityscape of Atlanta as he hopped around the city until he made it to his designated location. According to the report AAT-08317 recieved, it was here that he was meant to intercept one Stanton Stacy.

But the assassin knew plans might be altered, as according to the news last night he understood that there was a robbery at a gun store not to far from here. CCTV caught footage of a figure that seemed to fit with the person described to him, and so it wasn't a longshot to assume it could have been Stacy. Removing his rifle, AAT-08317 concentrated on the busy street as he scanned over the figures with his scope. The assassin scouted out for Stacy, knowing full well that eventually he would spot the man.

Stanton's mind wandered as he sat in his lean-to made of palettes and a discarded tarp beneath an overpass. The events of the previous night and day had been a whirlwind for him. First obviously was stealing the gun, an event that weighed on his conscious, mostly because he hadn't had enough money to fully reimburse the store owner. But with the day he had, he was very glad that he'd done what he'd done. Shootouts, attempting muggings, you name it had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours. Some of it had been down right frightening and he'd been worried that he would kill someone. Luckily he hadn't at least he was pretty sure about that. One of the few things that CHRONOS couldn't take from him was his military training. He was still a crack shot. Of course, he was far twitchier and on edge now than his days in the military but he could still hit a target when required.

Shifting his sitting position a little, Stanton could feel his stomach growling, reminding him that it had eaten his last meal last night before the robbery. You used up the last of your cash on the gun he thought, the scolding words seeming to come from an afterimage and not himself. But the after image was right. He was flat broke now, not a penny to his name. But there were always ways to find food in a big city. And so Stanton stood, ensuring that his pistol was still tucked into the pack of his jeans and concealed by his hoodie and headed out to one of the more busy streets in Atlanta.

Pools of water from the night's rainstorm steamed in the streets, giving the bright orange day a sort of close feeling. People, mostly business men and women on their lunch breaks dotted the streets, talking on their cellphones and moving from one building to another. Stanton's eyes darted like a madman around the crowds. He was a nervous person already, the fact that there could very well be a warrant out for his arrest certainly wasn't helping things. Every "hey" or "stop" he heard from random passerby's shot his attention in their direction only to be instantly revealed to find that they were not in fact talking to him. Honestly most people wouldn't even make eye contact. His strange blurred appearance spooking most people into crossing the street before they got to him or splitting the sidewalk as far from him as possible. The world still hadn't gotten used to people looking different from the average human, assuming that if their powers were out on display it probably meant trouble.

Trying to ignore the frightened looks and not so subtle shifts away from him, Stanton made his way to the back parking lot of a fast food joint. The dumpster was out back, and he had it on good authority that the security camera back there was just for show. These kinds of places always threw out perfectly good food, so he was fairly certain he's find something maybe half eaten but edible hidden in the trash.

Israel stared at the man beneath the overpass. An unassuming man of disheveled appearance.

His trail of near-imperceptible whisps of aura that he had left behind had lead Israel here, and it seemed that the man was nervous, likely afraid of being caught.

In any case, this man had some sort of ability to duplicate objects, and there was no telling what other abilities he may have possessed without further observation, and so, Israel waited, perched on the edge of the overpass itself and looking through the road at the man.