Something wicked this way comes...(Deluge and Lucius)

Halloween was always a festive time of year. Well it depends on the meaning of festive really. There were festivities so it counts one might suppose. It was always surprising how many people didn't really know the origins of Halloween. Most kids now and days just liked to make fun of it by calling it Hallow-Weenie or something like that. Very few ever took it back to it's most basic and reverential meaning like Regal did. Of course he was thirteen before he found out the true meaning, but all the same, better late than never. Originally a "pagan" tradition, a belief that this was when the after-life and the spirits thereafter returned to be amongst the living. At times there were celebrations, at other times there was panic and fear. But when you boiled it down to it's core values, it was a time to honor and revisit the dead. Stupid Christianity decided to overthrow the pagan holiday by declaring it a night that they honored the saints, which with Christianity sweeping the nation it soon became "All Hallows Eve". Then someone stupid figured they'd call it Halloween and expect kids not to make fun of it. Most of those kids were Regal's age, so immature that they were hardly human. They were like a cookie that was taken out of the oven too soon. They weren't quite baked, but they also weren't quite raw and unrefined.

    But unlike most kids his age, Regal was a little more preoccupied with things of a more.... macabre nature. Today Regal was sitting at a park bench, his mother was off making dinner reservations while he sat with the files. Shifting through photos of blood and gore that made him wince slightly. The wounds looked so inhuman. It looked like a savage animal had gotten to these people, as if something had literally reached in and started feasting upon them. Regal was most concerned however when the coroner noted that they were unlike any animal bite he had ever encountered ever. The bites and wounds were all so... superficial however. All of them drew blood, some of them deep enough to cause tissue damage but enough to kill? That was the question. None of the wounds were particularly lethal...save for one wound. One in the center of where the victim's heart was located...and their heart was missing. It was immediately chalked up to a serial killer, and Regal's mom began investigations but Regal...Regal himself wasn't so sure that this was indeed a serial killer. There was something about this that was fishy. He needed to get to the bottom of it, immediately.

  Pulling phone records, he quickly identified the past patterns of where this person had gone, he pulled out the personal information, including employment and recorded interviews of those who lived and interacted frequently with the victim. This victim was apparently a pretty typical case. 27 years old, engaged, worked at the old steel-welding forge not too far away. Perfect attendance, no known enemies or anyone who would want him dead. The guy seemed perfect...a little too perfect. Undergoing the interview with the girlfriend and playing it back Regal heard the young woman regale the interviewers with storied of their escapades, how they eloped when her father didn't approve. This immediately gave Regal suspicions, but that didn't account for why this was the FOURTH CASE of murder in this exact fashion. Regal's ear twitched when he heard his mother's voice on the recorder though. "Now tell me Miss Robinson. Did you or your fiance ever have...commitment issues?" Regal rolled his eyes as he anticipated the perfect love story to arise and how the concept was absurd. He wasn't wrong, after crying and repeated denial he heard the woman speak for herself. "H-he was a good man. My father never liked him, threatened to kill him. But oh God you don't think he did it did you? No he wouldn't do that. Jacob never hit me, he never even yelled at me! He always was there for me, even when they weren't. He was everything. I never had to worry about if I had anywhere to go, I never had to worry about him cheating on me, I never had to worry about him getting drunk." Regal clicked the recorder as he hummed for a moment. Yeah, this guy was too perfect for his own good. Regal then compared this with what he knew about the other four victims. However he quickly put things back in his messenger bag once his mother reappeared.

   "What were you looking over?" She quizzed with suspicion virtually dripping from her voice. Regal just smiled as he applied a little focus to simply make his mother forget ever having seen the folder, her face warped a little in confusion before she seemed to shake it off and sit down with a sigh. "So what's on your mind kid?" She asked. Regal looked to her cautiously before he smirked, adjusted himself on the bench to face her before speaking his mind. "Mom. All of these people who died. They were all boys. There are a ton of consistencies too. They all die the same way, they were ALL what someone might have considered to be the perfect guy, They all loved Halloween and they all metahumans." Regal brought these to light, but his mother already knew and noticed it. What she didn't notice was what Regal had seen with his psychometry. Each and every metahuman had used their power to hurt someone they loved in the past. Each victim was guilty of murder or what might have been considered an attempt of murder in any case. They never had any interaction with one and other, they never came in contact with one and other, and yet they all died of the same thing....something that Regal could somehow not perceive with his Psychometry. "Mom if you look deeper into it they all hurt someone too. They all hurt someone they loved in the past, maybe even killed. There's a pattern too. They victims are from all walks of life. The first one was ninety years old. The next was seventy, the next one was fifty. Then this guy was twenty seven, almost thirty. They keep getting younger. Mom I know you don't believe in this stuff but...something is going on here." Regal said...and no sooner had he said that had he wished he hadn't. A chill took to the area and in an instant Regal could feel darkness descending upon the area.

   Something wicked this way comes....

Spoiler:

Halloween, a time he remembered with a certain mixed feeling. A time when kids would get to dress up, and go around with pails that would end up filled with candy. A questionable thing to do admittedly, but something about it had a certain charm to it, but that was something Ryan never experienced first hand. Why however was a different story, as he had never gotten that answer, always something keeping him from getting it, even if the question had been asked. This year was no different, though the person he would have asked was not around to do so, he had not seen them in so long, and something about this day reminded him of that. A light drizzle fell upon the city of Los Angeles, blanketing it in a small amount of moisture, and overall not ruining what people wanted to do. Among those under the rain was Ryan, dressed in a jacket with hood pulled up to protect him from the rain.

Letting a small sigh slip through his lips, Ryan letting the few droplets of water fall into a cupped hand, and form a puddle. Focusing upon that puddle, he would notice the water ripple, before moving, and forming a levitating sphere of water above his palm and then falling back into it with an imperceptible splash. Water as it Always did then would slip through his fingers and to the ground once again, lost amongst the many puddles forming. One could say lost like he was, but it was more metaphorical than actually being lost, he had a place to go to, but that did not change much. Resting on a metal pole, he watched people move about as they usually did, lives of their own that kept them preoccupied, not that it would dawn upon the male to really care about that.

Pushing off from the pole, he would consider returning to what he called home and decided he would do so. Burying his hands into his pockets, Ryan would walk along the street until something hit him, not a chill but a strange sensation running up his spine. The cold didn't affect him, so it couldn't have been any kind of chill, but here it was now. His heart would begin to race as he felt that strange sensation overcome him, and his pace picked up without him even meaning for it to do so, walking faster along as if something were chasing him even if nothing was. Turning off into an alleyway, he could break off into a run as he felt his heartbeat grow into a frightful tempo. It pounded within his ears like a drum, louder and louder until it was all he could hear and yet he ran. Why he was running one could not hope to surmise, but he was doing so, and that was all that mattered.

What made him stop was something appearing before him, his run ceasing within an instant as he paused to look over that which stood before him. A being of an ethereal property, a ghostly white in appearance, and one could see right through it, but that was not the strangest part. It looked as if it were wearing armor, even if that armor did not even look real and a male face not too much older than him looked upon the hydrokinetic. Ryan gasped as water rapidly formed within his palm, perhaps the strongest he could get without loosing control, he did not want to hurt someone, but this seemed like he would not have too much of a choice. It held a blade within its hand, and without even needing to think he unleashed the bolt of water upon the thing, and it would slash through it with a motion of the blade. Droplets of water would splash out from where the attack was dissolved, and Ryan then found that he was in deep trouble.

it had been a few weeks since Lucius moved his lab into The Society's base, it was much better then the dump he was staying in before this and the best part was that he had a huge research wing largely left to himself. It was great, he had super computers and all the research equipment a man of science could ever ask for. He stayed awake for days at a time working on tech and experimenting with his now mutating meta gene. It seemed to be getting stronger, he was working on finding out how and why. He almost forgot it was Halloween he was working so much, not that he was going to be doing anything for the pointless holiday. It was a time for little brats to stuff there face with candy and teenagers to lurk in the night, nothing more. Still the origin of the holiday was an interesting one, and the feel of the holiday had a nice charm to it, so he might as well get into the mood.


Lucius sat in front of a huge screened super computer looking over some statistics taken from his blood sample when he got a report from his AI, Hector. "Sir, i have something that may interest you. There have been a number of meta human murders in the LA area recently that seem to be connected, would you like me to send you the file?" This was rather interesting, if meta humans were being murdered then it would have to be by someone very powerful or very skilled and if that type of person was on the move then Lucius would want to know about it. "please" With one word from lucius the pictures of the crimes were on the screen, as well as the history of the victims and full case file. Lucius looked it over and found that the wounds were almost completely random, all but one on each victim. The heart had been removed from each which left a very similar wound on there chests. Although lucius had seen many dead and killed many people before, the sheer barbaric nature of the attacks made him sick.


The last victim was found near the court house in LA, so that was the first place to look for clues. Lucius got up from his chair and walked up to a terminal, with a scan of his hand his gear was raised up from the ground attached to a wall that held each piece with a few straps. He grabbed everything he may need and put his suit and mask on, he then walked toward an elevator that would take him to the bass garage above, once there he got in his 1967 Modified Ford Mustang and activated the garages teleporter to port him and his car to LA. With a flash of blue light he was gone, he reappeared in the society's LA teleportation station and headed off to the court house.

On his way there he saw alot of kids running around with buckets receiving candy from strangers and generally jumping around. This annoyed him a bit as the streets were blocked more then usual, he revved his engine and the kids cleared out of the road, he then contained onward. As he hit a stop sign and let a few cars go by he saw a man with a hoodie on the side walk beside him, the man seemed to levitate a ball of water then drop it to the ground. Lucius felt curious about this meta human and so he decided to follow him considering that he fit the description of the other murder victims and he may run on to what was killing them by doing so.


The man continued walking until they came upon a street that had no others on it for the next few blocks, lucius thought it might draw the mans attention to him and considered abandoning his following until he saw something very odd coming up behind the man. It seemed to be some sort of ghost, it had roman looking armor on that lucius recognized as that of a early imperial period legionnaire. it then took out its short sword and walked at a steady pace toward the man. The man shot a stream of water at it and all it did was pass through it. Lucius positioned the car to fire its guns then shot a few bursts of energy bolts at the ghostly thing, again it passed through. This made Lucius feel there was no reason in fighting it so he went off to retrieve the water meta human. Lucius drove off and and went past the roman opening the door for the man to get in "Get in if you want to live!" lucius said to the man through the voice changer in his mask.

Regal was paranoid, he eventually found himself using his full force concentration into his mapping power. Instantly he was aware of everything within 300 meters of his own location. Close to 1000 feet in any direction surrounding him. His eyes opened as he processed everything happening within those areas. But he was looking for something strange, particular or estranged from the- Holy Roman Legionnaire! Regal stopped and fixated his attentions to one particular area, a roman legionnaire and a young man. The young man was running from something. But then he mustered out to reveal an attack of sorts. It was water? This young man was a meta human! Regal jumped up from the bench and took off running, not even caring as to what happened to his own well being. A car squealed to a halt as it tried to stop in time before hitting him. Thankfully it did manage to stop in time as Regal continued on. Regal was still focused on the water that dissolved? There was something wrong.

   A figure that seemed to be almost translucent, one that appeared almost intangible. Legionnaire with a sword and the whole water attack having it's course run as it had. The sudden chill of the area. Okay, Regal was a skeptic, but if he didn't know any better this was a spirit...a ghost of some form. But it couldn't be, Regal did not believe in such things. Regal hugged his pea-coat to his body as he ran through the rain and tried to move down the alleyway. There was a car, someone offering something to the young man. Regal let out a little grunt as suddenly the spectral creature was apported 200 meters away, keeping the young man safe. Regal then made sure to focus himself on the car, committing the license plate to memory, and keeping note of the person he had seen driving it, and the young boy, just in case he couldn't reach them in time.

 "I need....to run more...often." Regal said as he was panting. Looking to a nearby bench he couldn't help but notice a larger woman looking at him with a shocked look on her face. Regal cocked his head to the side. "What? I'd ask if you'd never seen anyone out of breath before... but I'm pretty sure walking to the mirror is your daily work out." He snapped, feeling particularly snippy at the large woman as her face insulted him with all of it's flabby glory. "A diet means more than just a diet coke lady." He said as he walked down the alleyway, keeping his mind alert and withdrawing his cell phone. He had a favor to cash in, and it was time he did so.

  "Hello?" A voice came over the other line.
  "Hey... Ya know that favor you owe me? Imma cash it in. I have a particular license plate number I need you to get a hold of..." Regal said. He gifted his "benefactor" with the information and then hung up the phone. Regal's mother ran up behind him and hugged him before screaming out, asking if he were insane before even realizing that there was something wrong with him. Regal got a text message from his "Benefactor" only to find that the person had taken lengths to protect themselves. Thankfully, pulling a couple connections of a guy who knows a guy, he knew how to get a hold of this man, a cell phone that was apparently on the boy he was with. Regal found himself ever curious however...he never said anything about the boy.

  "I know the thing that attacked you. It's gonna attack you again, and it's not gonna stop. I need to talk to the guy you're with, can you put him on or have him get back to me?" Regal asked as soon as the phone had been answered...voicemail or otherwise.

Spoiler:

Okay so his attacks would prove pointless, but that did not mean he should panic. Okay, Ryan was panicking majorly, but he could get away if he really wanted to, his powers allowed him that much. Now with scary phantom wielding blade that sliced through his attack before him, all Ryan had was the option to run away before it could use that weapon on him. Someone unleashed a few bolts of something at the ghost, and nothing would happen, though they had enough time to shout at him about coming with them if they wanted to live. Ryan blinked and turned to them as the ghost itself disappeared, leaving him with enough time to take that offer and his legs to carry him towards the vehicle. Slipping into the vehicle, he would slump into the seat and sigh, somewhat happy that he had managed to get away from the whole situation.

”Thanks.” He said slightly breathlessly, before feeling something vibrating in his pocket, removing it and noticing it was someone calling, but he was not sure who. Answering, a  young voice on the other end would speak to him, talking about something or other, about the thing that was trying to kill him and how it would not stop. ”Hey...um..apparently someone wants tot alk to you.” Ryan said handing the phone to Lucius.

The male got into Lucius' car and as soon as his door closed he went full speed, driving as fast as could to get away from whatever that thing was. He barley noticed that the thing disappeared before he left he was in such a rushed state. What in the hell was that thing? Lucius didn't really believe in things such as ghosts, but this to the common person was one. Lucius tried to think of a scientific explanation for what he just saw as he drove. The man said thanks to Lucius and he responded with nothing but a grunt as they drove to nowhere in particular. The appearance of ghosts or what looked like them on this night was humorously ironic now that he thought about it, this made him speculate the possibility that it could be just some sicko that was trying to be thematic. But that wouldn't explain the armor, this whole thing was a mess. He needed answers to these questions, whatever the beings were they threatened meta humans and humans alike, they had to be stopped.


"Well that was an....interesting sight, do you know anything about them? Lucius said to the man quizzically. It was unlikely that he knew anything but Lucius still had to ask. Lucius swerved out of the way of a few people who were walking across the street and realized he was going 120 MPH, he quickly lowered his speed to not draw attention to himself, the last thing they needed was the cops asking questions. The man was younger then he previously thought, about 17 he guessed. Why were all these meta humans teenagers? He had only met a hand full of adult ones out of dozens, maybe he was just getting old. Suddenly Lucius heard a faint vibrating coming from the mans pocket, most likely his phone. He then told Lucius someone wanted to talk to him. This puzzled lucius for a while, but before he had time to think about it anymore he grabbed the phone and put it up his masks ear vent. "Hello? Who is this? Why do you want to talk to me?" Lucius said as he pulled in too a fast food restaurant parking lot and parked the car. It seemed to be far enough away now, but what would they do now? Grab a burger?

"This is really important and we don't have time. I think I know what that thing was and I think it may have something to do with the other murders in the city. I also know that this thing won't stop until it's dead, and seeing what it did to the water powers, metahuman powers won't affect it. My name is Lucifer and I'm a friend of Ryan's. The boy you saved. This is the stuff I do for a living, so do us all a favor and meet me on 22nd street in five minutes... well, make it seven. I'm walking, you have a car. Just make sure you look for the light." Regal scoffed before hanging up the phone, leaving the rest of it enigmatic before making his way to 22nd street. It was indeed going to take him around four minutes to even get there, but he figured it would take about three minutes to ditch his mom. Regal turned to his mom and smiled. "H-hey mom?" He asked with a sweet smile on his face. With her full attention he lifted his head from his shoulders, the sight scaring his mother into a fainting spell. Replacing his head upon his own shoulders he made use of that memory power once more and ensured she would remember nothing.

He made his way, to 22nd street with a flash light lit as he made the light dance upon the wall with the flick of the wrist in common rotation. He assumed that they would think of the fact "Lucifer" means "bearer of light" and know that it was him. He'd also approach them if he saw them first, but it was not likely. While he hated to lie about who he was, his benefactor made it clear that trust may not be the easiest way to win over these individuals. He'd need to get them to hear them out first... but once again the air grew cold. Unnaturally cold.

Handing the phone to the unknown metahuman who's car he was now sitting in, Ryan leaned back and kinda waited for whatever happened to happen. It involved a lot of fast driving while he demanded to know who the person was, and probably getting an answer the he could not hear as the car parked in a fast food restaurant parking lot. He couldn't quite tell which one it was by reading the sign, but he knew by the colors that it was one he liked, so there was that much he could look forward to.

A young voice started talking on the other end of the phone, he seemed to know about the situation so it would be wise to meet up with him to get some answers, he told lucius to meet him on 22nd street and didnt give any land mark but 'follow the light'. Great, he had one of those mysterious types that only made things like this harder on his hands. The phone was hung up and lucius handed it back to the boy. " Nice to meet you Ryan my name is Lucius, if you want to eat something then get it now, the person on the phone wants to meet with us." Lucius said to the boy calling him by the name the person on the phone gave him. Lucius sat back in his seat as he waited for the boy to get food if he wanted it, then he started the car and began driving to 22nd street. It was pretty close so it only took them a minute to get to the street, now all they had to do was find this light the boy was talking about.


As they drove more slowly then before down 22nd street a few more of the ghostly things started to come out of nowhere from behind them. This made lucius drive a bit faster and start looking for the light even more. They kept driving and then he saw it, a light on a wall that was being moved in a cirular motion, lucius pulled up to the wall to see a boy of about 13 with a flash light.

"Red Tide, I presume?" Regal asked with a small smile. "With the videos out there you'd be surprised who can get ahold of what. My name's Regal and I'm the one Luci sent to take care of your little problem." He said as he looked to Ryan and nodded in a sense of greeting. "Alright so. Neither of you have any idea how weird this is going to sound. But how weird this is can only paralleled by the fact it's utterly true." He said as he shuffled through his messenger bag and he opened a car door and seated himself. After producing a yellowish folder he offered up the information he had drawn out.

"Blah blah blah, a guy in Roman legion apperal has been killing people, removing their hearts, blah blah blah. The way he's doing it is in coloration to how people were 'sacrificed' in Chicago. I dug a little more into it and apparently the heart is some form of ingredient needed in a ritual. We're dealing with MAD skills in the occult. Beyond me even...as much as I hat to admit it." Regal sighed before handing over the documents and then looking at Ryan and poking his shoulder. "What about you? You alright?"

Get something to eat? Normally he would have been fine with that, but his mind then recalled that he personally did not have any money on himself to get said food, so that left him in somewhat of a bind. So instead of doing that, despite his stomach growling, Ryan would sigh and shake his head. ”Nah, I don't need anything to eat.” Ryan muttered loud enough for the male to hear before stretching his limbs, and then they were off to meet this kid. It would not take too long for them to reach the place they were supposed to be going,l where they would catch sight of the kid in question. Ryan found himself a little confused by why the male was waiting there, but then again he did remember that maybe it was that someone that wanted to talk to the guy in the mask. He then began talking about occult stuff, and heart cutting out, sounding as if that would intended for him, the whole heart cutting out anyway. Then he turned to him and asked if he was alright. ”Yeah....i'm fine.” He wasn't hurt or anything, so he was alright. ”Wait a minute...that thing wanted to cut out my heart?” Okay, now it was sinking in.

The boy called Lucius by his handle, he thought he was clever for knowing who he was but Lucius' intention was for people to know him by that name, so he had succeeded in that. As expected he told them he knew something on the matter, as he got in the back seat he produced a folder and offered it to Lucius. Lucius opened it and fanned through it. He started rambling on even know the information was in the folder, but Lucius kind of like the narrative. Lucius turned slightly to Ryan "It seems they were, these things are killing meta humans and i need to find out how to stop them" He spoke to the both of them as he drove off "We cant stay here, those things were following us on the way here, so where too?" just then they appeared once again out of seemingly nowhere, lucius picked up his speed trying to lose them. He dashed out of the parking lot and once again started driving erratically, yet it seemed he had full control over the fast moving vehicle.

"Yeah. There's a ton of deities in pagan worship that demand the hearts of people. But normally they are pretty specific or there's a process in which their selected. This one seems bent on nabbing people that love Halloween, have metahuman abilities and it's interested in several age groups. I dunno anyone who does that." Regal confessed as he looked back to the road and sighed as he started looking around. This whole situation was confusing to him. How were they supposed to find out what the ghost was- Sudden spark of inspiration. Literally and figuratively.

"Wait...I think I know how we can find them." Regal said, almost absently as his lips curved into a slight smile. "It got cold. Like REALLY cold when the ghost showed up, and a light flickered. Maybe if we get thermal and some electromagnetic imaging up we can identify the location of a cold-spike and an EMF anomaly." Regal said, really hoping these two understood what he was trying to accomplish.

So apparently they were dealing with pagan deities, whatever that meant. All Ryan knew was that something wanted his heart cut out, and he was kinda fond of his heart not being cut out, so they were at an impasse at this point. However it seemed this kid had some idea on what they were dealing with, even though it was not too much of one. Well, they had more of one that Ryan, and that was enough of a start. All he knew how to do was splash things, and freeze them, not much help when fighting ghosts but then again he did not want to fight them, so that was kind of for the best. Until they wanted to cut out his heart anyway, then his powers felt somewhat useless against the newest threat. It seemed however the male had some idea of what to do in the situation, which made one of them so far.

Lucius reformed with traffic and then slightly turned to the boy in the back seat "I have both in my lenses, but where to start. They seem to be poping up everywhere, but id rather find the source then go around fighting things that can't be fought." " Lucius said to him as he drove. The boy seemed to know alot about this stuff, or at least more then Lucius and the other one. It was an odd situation Lucius was in, and most likely the most heroic thing he would do for a long time.