Urban Exploration

Zeph lazily sat back on the roof of the skyscraper, adjusting the camera to get as close to a perfect position as he could. He’d been itching to take some pictures for a while, an itch that had gone unscratched for a while due to hero work becoming increasingly hectic for him. ‘Was this what having a personal life felt like?’ He thought to himself as he lined up the camera for the picture. He’d wondered what it was like. He knew he probably had one at some point in his life, back before the storm. A life with family, friends and-

“Thoughts for another time…” He mumbled to himself as he began taking pictures of the cityscape. He was doing this to relieve his stress, not make it even worse. He continued snapping away with his camera, feeling himself get lighter with each successive photo. Photography had started as a practical skill he took up, but he had grown to enjoy taking pictures since. Not only that, but it helped him find interesting places to explore across the city. He would always take photos of his findings when he went urban exploring, be it for selling, research or just because he could.

Not like he was complaining too much. Life had definitely thrown a lot of unexpected things his way, and while he wasn’t weaving all the hits, he was still going. And while yes, the search for his memories had been very slow and close to unrewarding, Zeph was nowhere close to giving up. Whenever questions were raised, he needed answers, even if it meant digging deep for them. He had to know. He always had to know.

Once he was done taking photos, he looked through his new additions… And immediately noticed something was off.

‘Wait. Something’s not correlating with the usual here.’

Zeph looked through the new photos again, and there he saw it, in the abandoned warehouse out on the edge. A sliver of light escaping from a random hole in the roof of the building. That wasn’t there before, not to mention that the look of it was pretty unsettling in and of itself. He was supposed to be off patrol, that was the rule he set for himself - but as always, he was far too curious to be tired. He needed to investigate.

“Well, let’s see what’s in store.”

Zeph quickly gathered up his things and put on his goggles and mask. If something was going on down in that decrepit warehouse, he had to know. Leaping off the edge of the skyscraper, he harnessed the winds to fly briefly before landing on another roof. Landing on a hand, he acrobatically sprung to his feet before continuing to bound and somersault across the rooftops, using his powers to boost his leaps as he approached the object of his curiosity.

Zeph slid off a roof, landing in a somersault and 3-point landing outside the abandoned building. It looked, quite frankly, like a wreck. The roof was covered in rust and holes, grime caked the walls, and sparse cobwebs decorated already filthy corners. He shuddered at the thought of  entering the place wondering if it was even worth it. But he wanted to go for another round of urban exploring. His curiosity had long since taken charge, and it wasn’t letting go of the reins. He was going to find out.

“Freaky warehouse, here I come.”

Moments Before  



At this point, Logan was wondering why cops didn’t just routinely check the old, rusty, abandoned warehouses around town to make sure nobody was doing anything nefarious.  

Like, for instance, an arms dealer making a trade on some high-tech weaponry.  

“Special designed energy rifles, straight from Anthem Enterprises themselves...” The dealer stated to the leader of the group he was selling too. “You guys hear about that military train robbery awhile back, these bad boys were from that...”He pulled out one of the rifles, showing it off to the group. “Newest models, designed using Mercer Tech fusion core mags, much stronger than your typical batteries, and last longer before needing to reload...” 

Logan crouched up in the rafters, watching everything unfold down below, he remained in the shadows, his goggles zooming in on the rifles.  

”If those rifles get into the wrong hands, Cops won’t be able to stop them.

One of the many guards the dealer brought with him walked over to one of the crates they had stacked off to the side, rolling over a mannequin wearing a SWAT issued tactical vest.  

“Thank you...” The dealer stated, aiming the rifle, firing off a blue shot of energy illuminating entire warehouse. The shot penetrated clean through the armor, and out the other side with ease. “And that’s just the default setting, you can adjust the size of the shot as well as the power output...” He slid his finger across a small display on the side of the gun, taking aim again. This time, the shot was much larger, and brighter, as most of the mannequin was completely gone, the remains on fire. “A couple of these, and you’ll be unstoppable.”

“Holy shit!” Logan couldn’t help but state out loud.  

“Where’d that come from!?” The dealer quickly spun back around, scanning the warehouse before turning back to the buyers. “You setting me up!?” He aimed the rifle at them.  

Suddenly, a flashlight illuminated Logans position, revealing him to the others.  

“Oh crap.” Logan scrambled to stand up, dashing across the rafters as the warehouse filled with gunfire.  

As he looked back to the group, he saw the leader taking aim with the rifle, firing a round towards him, aiming ahead to catch him.

“Oh come on!” He exclaimed as he jumped up, planting one foot on the railing to kick himself off and over the other railing, guiding himself to land in a clear spot on top of one of the old shelves just below him. Surprisingly, the shelf held as he rolled across it, moving off the edge and laddering his way down to the ground. “Alright, you wanna play...” He pulled out his pistol, chambering a round. “Let’s play.”  

The guards moved between the shelves on either side, looking to box him in, as they swept between each shelf, scanning up and down before moving off.  

When one of the guards round a corner, his pistol was pulled to the side as Logan twisted his arm out of the way, spinning so he was facing away, driving a powerful elbow into his face, followed by aiming his pistol at the next guard coming up, firing three rounds, two into his chest, and one between his eyes. The ballistic gel rounds hitting with enough force to lay him out. Before the first guard could regain his composure, Logan pulled the arm he was holding onto over his shoulder, dropping down and pulling him over and onto the ground in an arm drag.  

Once the man was on the ground, he received a gel round to the face as well. But before Logan could stand back up, a round flew inches by his head, as another guard approached from the other end of the shelves.  

Logan spun on his heels, leaping back to his feet into a full sprint, jumping up as the guard took three more shots. He used the shelving to dodge the shots and get some elevation as he moved from side to side, closing the distance before driving a hard dropkick into the mans sternum, sending him flying back. As he fell to the floor, he did a quick kip up as two more guards came from either end of the shelving, guns trained on him.  

“Don’t fucking move!”  

“Crap...” Logan stated as he looked from one guard to the other, as they moved closer to him, other guards now moving into the aisle. “Sooooo, anyway we can talk about this?” He stated as he held his hands up.[/i]

Zeph heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire coming from inside the warehouse. While he had considered sneaking in, there was pretty much no point now. He cocked back his fist, gathered the winds and blew the doors off the building, and saw the scene that had just unfolded.

"I guess I made a good choice."

Zeph briefly scanned at the situation in front of him. One man had his hands up in the air while others surrounded him. He'd probably been caught by them and had to defend himself. Would explain the general mess, the sound of gunfire and the the fact that he was surrounded with his hands up.

But first things first, those guns had to be taken care of.

Zeph was off like a rocket, leaping between guards like lightning, both figuratively and literally. Tagging a guard, leaping off of them, then leaping onto another, rinse and repeat. Each guard he targeted, he used his powers to harness lightning in his hand. Enough to incapacitate, but never enough to outright kill them. Not only was killing wrong to him, he couldn't get answers out of them if they were dead.

He started out with the ones in the immediate vicinity of the armored man, who was likely a hero himself. Though, Zeph didn't recognize him. He hadn't made it a point to keep tabs on the heroes of the areas he was in, a habit he'd only just started to break recently. In hindsight, he should have been doing so from the start. Within a minute, all the guards close to him were down, leaving only the ones farther away.  They'd be a problem of their own, but for now, his focus was getting the other hero into a position to be able to work with him.

Thinking quickly, Zeph raised his hand to create a whirlwind around him and his possible ally, the wind catching or deflect them with picked up debris. Now he was basically free to start up a conversation without the threat of imminent death. It'd be nice to get some answers.

"Hello, local Nomad at your service! Can I take your order?"

Before Logan could make his move, the main doors to the warehouse burst open, a new figure flying in, quickly disposing of the guards surrounding the young vigilante.  

“Yeah...” ProwlerKnight lowered his hands, acting tough as he looked around the guards on the floor. “That’s right, ya’ll didn’t know I had back up, huh...” He placed a hand on the newcomers shoulder, pointing to him. “Ya’ll just got your asses handed to you by my man, uh...” He glanced over to him as he introduced himself. “Nomad!” He then leaned in, whispering to Nomad. “Thanks for the save.”  

From the other side of the shelving, the sound of the energy gun charging up a shot could be heard. The dealer taking aim through the thermal scope of the rifle, targeting the newcomer who had just taken out his crew. “Let’s see you deal with this ya bastard!”

Logan, hearing the shot, quickly grabbing Nomad and pulling him out of the line of fire just as the energy shot pierced through the crates and flew past them, punching through more crates. “Hold that thought.” He then turned and started towards the dealer.  

As the dealer was swapping out the mags, he looked up in time to see a flying superman punch coming for his face. “Oh fuck!!” He snarled as he reeled back, dropping the rifle to hold his nose, which was bleed profusely. “Ya little shit, ya broke my nose!” He reached into his coat, pulling out an energy pistol. “Now I’m gonna fucking kill ya!”  

As he went to take aim, Logan latched onto his wrist, twisting his arm away as he brought his other hand down onto the back of his elbow. The audible pop indicated his elbow had been dislocated, forcing him to drop his pistol.  

“Alright, alright, I surrender...!” The dealer exclaimed, holding up his other hand to signal Logan to stop. “Just stop breaking my fucking bones.”  

“Good...” Logan grabbed the man by his jacket, straightening him back up as he brushed him off. “Now, I want your supplier, so you’re gonna tell me everything about him.”  

“I don’t know anything.”  

Logan sighed as he shook his head. “That is a shame...” His hand snapped up, grabbing the wrist of his broken arm, twisting it and lifting it behind his back, forcing the man to a knee, his free hand grabbing onto his shoulder as he pushed the arm higher, feeling the resistance. “Maybe your memory's a bit hazy, I hear pain is really good at fixing that.”

“Look, He calls from a blocked line and tells me where to find the stuff, then the moneys is taken from my account, I don’t know how he does it, he’s got some hacker or something...” The man cried out. “Guys a fucking ghost, nobody has seen...” As the arm raised more, another cry of pain rang out. “He’s got this guy working for him, some kinda super soldier assassin, goes by Revenant, only met the fucker once...” He looked back to Logan. “That’s all I got, I swear!”  

Logan took a second, before releasing the arm. “Let me see your phone.”  

“What?”

“Your phone, now!”  

Logan swiped the phone from the mans reluctant hand, looking it over as his goggles scanned it. “Alright Sam, check the call logs.”  

”On it, give me thirty seconds.”

Michael inhaled.

He realized the air smelled of exhaust and pollution, similar and yet different than the last scent he smelled. No oceanic salt, nor the sound of seagulls screeching in the distance.  His eyes opened and he was somewhere else, an alleyway, a man bundled as tightly in the corner looking up to him with a  ‘deer in the headlights’ expression that he found hard to read. Where in the hell was he anyway?

Trying to think back led to immediate migraines and flashes of blood. The blood was nothing new, yet despite that he couldn’t tell what exactly was flashing through his mind. A bead of blood dribbled from his nose, something he quickly dabbed up.  No time to waste worrying here.

Quickly he appraised himself with hands patting over his own body. Tan cargo shorts and the usual polo shirt combination that formed his general fashion. Despite that he realized his body was sore. The kind of sore that he was sure came through an excess of physical activity, as if he had been running or moving for days on end. A lack of sleep wasn’t something he usually worried about, yet here he was coming into reality and feeling far weaker.

”What the hell...” He muttered under his breath, glaring at the man that was still looking at him as if he were a three-headed elephant. Turning away from him, he walked out into a wider space that looked more like he was near  He dug through his pockets,  feeling for his phone which was lacking.  Did he drop his phone somewhere?

What in the hell is happening?

The only thing that broke him from his thoughts was the sound of a commotion not so far away. From the stereotypical run down warehouse one would find in those sections of the city.  Shots and some indistinct yelling. Maybe they could help him out? Pooling ethereal energy into his legs, Michael blinked out of existence in a brief burst of speed. Scaling the walls of metal with narily a sound and standing on the roof, looking down through broken sky lights.  

In the scan shadows night offered he noted two figures against many. With a thought he tried to call on his ethereal armor, a stray thought cropping up which made him think better. Why didn’t he want to? Shadows crackling with red energy rose over him and formed a skin tight metal armor, the shoulders spike and the helmet bearing glowing silver pits within them.

Despite being prepared to help out these erstwhile heroes he simply watched with great interest as a dealer was taken down, quickly begging for his bones to be spared. ”Humans really are pathetic as always.” He muttered to himself, waiting to see how things go. A name popped up, someone by the moniker of Revenant? If he were an actual undead he didn’t know but that could come up later. Picking out a route to the floor below, he deftly with enhanced speed leapt from box to box and landed on the ground.

”I was worried I’d have to actually help out there but you two had it covered.” His voice came distorted through his helmet,  tattered shadow cloth of a cloak fluttering behind him. ”I wonder what kind of weapons we’re dealing with here.” He had one of those guns in hand, looking it over quizzically.

Zeph condensed the whirlwind into a single gust behind the armed vigilante, boosting him as he flew forward with a superman punch to the dealer’s nose. He might have gone overboard using the full whirlwind, but at least the man wasn’t dead, as was evidenced by the dealer’s cursing and holding his bloodied nose. He noticed the criminal reaching for something that emitted the same glow that had drawn him to the warehouse. A weapon-

POP!

He flinched at the sound of the dealer’s arm being dislocated. Never a pretty sound, to be sure. Something about the sound of a body being broken viscerally disgusted. This guy was brutal with it, too. Threatened to do even more to him unless he spilled everything he knew. Nomad knew he’d need to make note of this guy in future.

However, the method did work. The dealer began rattling off what he knew. According to him, the supplier would take some searching. Called from blocked numbers, only gave the locations to their illicit goods rather than delivering them directly. And he had hired muscle. Some super soldier assassin named Revenant. And know they had access to his call logs as well. That Revenant guy could be an issue, but Zeph  was confident that the both of them could take him on-

Today just got even weirder.

At least, that’s what Zeph would think if he wasn’t more interested than confused. What had just been a small indulgence of his own curiosity resulted in something exciting. Not only had he found and helped to disrupt what seemed to be an illegal weapons deal, but he also got himself an ally. And now, another person had entered the scene. An even more armored person with spiked shoulders and a dark flowing cloak.

‘Another? Maybe here to help… or fight, Can’t be certain.’

Nomad tilted his head studiously at the figure, making note of every detail he could. They were now inspecting the weapon the dealer had lost. He couldn’t get a good look, but he could tell that it was some form of advanced pistol, possibly an energy weapon.

“Who are you? Matter of fact, I don’t know who either of you are.”

He took a moment to step back and properly examine the situation. This new individual didn’t seem to be a hero, yet it was clear they had planned to hit this place and join in if the two couldn’t handle it themselves. And the way he said ‘we’ to Zeph meant that he should be considered in the clear… for the time being at least.

“Sorry, that came out sounding really rude when I didn’t mean it that way.” He corrected himself after that last statement. ”I’ve introduced myself to him…” He gestured to Prowlerknight, “But not you, and I don’t really know either of your names. So..."

Zeph stuck out a hand.

"Nice to meet you. I’m Nomad. What about you two?"