Impersonation Gambit (Chameleon)

New York was constantly being rebuilt, and sometimes even added onto. New companies moved into town all the time, most with nothing really interesting about them besides the fact they were likely fronts for heroes. Every millionaire thought they could go out and fight crime nowadays, maybe they just read to many comic books. They wouldn't be a problem however, those types died as fast as they started. Fact of the matter was money didn't instantly make you Batman, they left their companies vulnerable to hostile takeover and they weren't exactly skilled in the whole crime fighting thing. But that wasn't the kind of company Lucius was looking at, those were a dime a dozen. He heard through the grape vine a meta human research center would be opening in town, and the building was already under construction.

Besides the fact it was now competition, there were a few scientists among the team that weren't completely incompetent. Such a research facility would only makes things more difficult for his races ascension, not that it couldn't be worked around later on, but Lucius was one to get rid of problems before they started. He had gathered a few follows, specifically Isabel, John, and Daniel. They were the most useful ultimately if some hero showed up. The objective was simple, destroy the half built building. The three underlings would sit watch in different places while Lucius charged up to destroy the large construction site in one swoop. Simple, destruction was always easy. This wasn't even that important of a mission, just a little tying of loose ends.

"So that's it? We're just blowing a building up?" Daniel asked after the three appeared right outside the site. That was probably a big deal to the common criminal, but to Lucius and his following, it was child's play.

"That's the objective." Lucius said plainly in return.

"Why couldn't you just do this yourself? You can just level the place." Isabel said as the three walked closer to where they were headed.

"What? You don't like being around me after our little scuffle?" Lucius said in a rather dead pan way.

"You mean after you kicked my ass for killing that little bastard? Yeah, I'll admit i have some animosity Lucius." Isabel returned in a 'obviously' type tone. Rather then get angry like he did that night at the mention of the boy, Lucius remained calm and raised his hand, as if to tell his underlings to be silent. Around the corner stood a worker, likely the one that got stuck with clean up. He probably had the worst luck in the world. With a simple gesture from Lucius the man was impaled on a red energy construct, he grunted a few times before quickly dying, after which the construct was dispersed.

"You see? You're a ruthless killer. What was so different abo.." Isabel started before being cut off.

"Shut. Your. Mouth." Lucius said with a piercing tone, which made the girl do just as he had said. From there they continued on until they reached a centralized position.

"Alright, go take your positions and alert me if you see anything that may impede us. If you don't screw up, this should be done quickly." Lucius ordered with a wave of his hand, shooing away his followers.

"Alright boss." John said, which caused Lucius to sigh. The guy didn't have to say that every time he was given an order. In a few moments everyone was patrolling their section and Lucius was charging up power to level this surprisingly large construction site, if nothing stopped it, this would go off in less then a minute without a hitch.

New York. A vile city in most aspects. Not only dotted with rubble from it's destruction, but the people - all of them stunk. Being from here was probably one of his biggest secrets. He hated the place but at the same time the scum filled ally ways and dirty streets brought a nostalgic feeling to his heart. A form of loathful love. But he could not dwell on his past, or get distracted. He had a job to do. A simple target... easy money.

There was a building being constructed and his client, a man who had the smell of a Doctor about him wanted the head architect removed for some reason. Part of Chameleon's deal was that he didn't ask questions, he was only to know what he was told. A sensible arrangement. The scaled figured approached the construction site under the cover of darkness, his skin altered in order to blend in with his surroundings. He scuttled down the side of a neighboring building before leaping to the scafolding. He curled his fingers and toes so that he landed without noise and slithered his way along the wall and into a window. He curved upwards and began crawling along the roof, scanning for any who were still left in the building. His eyelids blinked sideways and his eyes began seeing in thermal vision - there was only one person, who was outside. He probably got stuck with clean up, unlucky bastard.

However, whenever he looked through the ceiling he was clinging too, he could see there was one other person in the building. A person who liked to work late, and from the looks of their body temperature and outline, suffered from obesity. A description that matched that of his targets. He quickly scuttled along the ceiling to the un constructed window once more and moved up two floors and clung to the inside roof once more. He moved slowly and silently, his scales allowing him to be amost completely invisible. When he was above his target, he flung down and wrapped his thighs around the man's head. Securing his hands to the roof with the same substance that allowed him to scale the walls, Chameleon violently twisted his thighs to the right and the only noise that was made were some quiet grunts and the vicious sound of a snapping spinal cord.

The man's body hit the floor, his eyes wide and filled with horror. Chameleon's feet didn't touch the ground, instead he pulled his legs up and secured them to the roof once more, before he went to scuttle through the window. Checking with heat vision once more, he noticed that there were more. He saw the one from earlier jerk before falling to the floor and begin to fade. What are the chances, too murderers in the same construction site. He moved along the wall in order to get an actual visual on whoever killed the man. There were four of them. One of them dressed in a black cloak gave some form of order and they split up.

Chameleon near-invisibly moved down the building a rapidly scuttled behind the group. How... curious... He tensed his muscles ever so slightly, he may have to defend himself if any of them are capable of seeing him. He recalled that there were four and used his heat vision to track each of them. The one in the black cloak was the leader, it was obvious... what were they doing here? Perhaps they were rival assassins? Here to kill the same architect. There was only one way to find out.

He moved silently, crawling along the sides of containers and vehicles. He picked his target, the one who was furthest away and stalked. Silently. Watching. Learning.

So everything seemed to be going as planned, everyone was in position and Lucius was nearly ready to cause one hell of a light show. Of course, nothing was every really that simple.

"Possible hostile incoming." Hector stated telepathically, prompting Lucius to bring his focus from charging up energy to this new threat. Looking to the radar map on his HUD he saw his scanners had picked up the threats heat signature, whoever it was they were moving fast and through the air. Preparing himself Lucius got into a fighting stance and faced the incoming target. The hero burst in, one look at this guy and you could see he had some kind of air based power. He looked like a tornado with a human inside, coming at Lucius at VERY fast speeds.

Unfortunately for this guy, Lucius had been to speedster town and learned a few things. The meta human attempted to blitz him, but was met with the shocking force of Lucius' repulsive field. The invisible shield spat as it threw the living tornado back into humanoid form and across the room. Lucius just burst out laughing when he saw what the kid was wearing, he swore the costumes just got worse and worse.

"....And who are you supposed to be?" Lucius said mid laugh. The male of about 20 then quickly scurried to his feet, looking shocked.

"T-titanic tornado..." The male responded, which sent Lucius into hysterics. After a good ten seconds Lucius gathered himself, before becoming serious rather abruptly.

"Alright kid this can go down two ways, you leave, or you die. I urge you to pick option one and then reconsider your life." Lucius said. The aerokinetic just got a defiant look on his face, oh the pride of these heroic types. Taking his air form again the hero charged, only to be thrown back once again by Lucius' tech. It clearly hurt, and likely had some impact on the boys powers, that made things easier. Lucius then steadily walked toward the male, who was now crawling backwards to get away from him. With a motion the kid let out a pulse of wind, which Lucius quickly reacted to with his sharp mind and matched with a pulse of energy that consumed the weaker gust of wind.

"You see, this isn't about colorful costumes and ridiculous names. This is the real world, and you're playing with the big boys now." Lucius said as he wrapped the boy up in rope like constructs then lifted him from the ground so they were face to face. The kid struggled to use his powers, but was quickly thwarted whenever he tried by Lucius turning up the harshness of the constructs around him. The young man screamed, gaining the attention of Lucius' underlings.

"Um....is everything alright in there?" Isabel asked Lucius through the communicator.

"Minor set back, stay where you are." Lucius said in return.

"Yes boss." John said instinctively, keeping up with his habit of saying that whenever given an order.

"Hey bell, what do you think he's doing?" John said back through the communicator to Isabel.

"Well, judging by the scream i assume he's slowly killing someone." Isabel said with a slight chuckle.

"Listening to you two makes me feel good about myself." Daniel said on the same channel.

"....Are you calling me stupid?" Isabel asked with a hint of anger. John just grunted.

"Yes, but it was mostly directed at John. Seriously dude, how did you even get picked up by Lucius?" Daniel asked with sincere curiosity.

"Probably because i can cave in pretty boy faces like yours." John said in return.

"I could totally jump over there and put a bullet in your head if i wanted to, but i doubt that would sit well with Red. You'll out live your usefulness eventually." Daniel said before cutting communications with his two peers.

Chameleon's camouflaged body crept just behind one of the henchmen, who was wearing a black leather jacket. His tongue licked across his lips, and he froze in place, allowing himself to become almost completely invisible. The man began speaking to himself. At first, Chameleon thought he was just lonely but he spotted a black ear piece in his ear. Creeping closer, he began to crawl up the side of a cement truck and moved as close as he wanted to risk. The man spoke...


His tone. This man was probably a fool, the underling of the underlings. He tilted his head and blinked. Compliant, loyal - like a faithful guard dog. And the way he speaks to the female. "Bell". Bell is probably not her real name. Perhaps some form of affectionate nickname? Platonic or does it go further? He was probably too simple to work out how to get beyond friends. And when he spoke to the other person.... defensive. Aggressively so. They must not get along. Hmmm...


Chameleon blinked once more, analyzing his prey. Imitating this man should be easy. The strong headed but weak minded underling. There was just one small hitch. What if he was a meta-human too. What abilities is he capable off. Would he be capable of emulating them? The lizard man narrowed his eyes. It's a risk. One he will have to take... He crept down from the side of the vehicle and with his night vision spotted that there were several holes dotted all over the construction sight where they were laying pipes. Directly behind the man, he rose and stood four inches over him. Still not making a noise.

He tapped the man's shoulder, and as he turned swiftly slashed his talons across his throat, leaving four huge slices along his jugulars. The man gasped but before he could make any noise, Chameleon slashed with the other hand, doubling the amount of deep cuts, that if you were to poke your fingers through you would be able to touch The Wall's breathing tubes. He let out a desperate gurgle, eyes widened. Chameleon reached forward and gently took the earpiece from his ear. "I'll take that." The lizard man then grabbed the man's entire face and threw him to the ground. This all taking place over the span of about a second. The man's eyes stared foggily at the reptilian figure, who was blurring in and out of focus while John struggled to breathe.

Chameleon looked at the blood on his fingers and extended his tongue, licking some of it from his razor nails. He began walking torwards the downed man, and as he did his scales seemed to flip over. By the time he'd taken the three steps towards his victim his body had changed into The Walls, to the point where even his fingers prints were the same. He reached down and grabbed the dying man by the hair. Chameleon was quite surrpised he was still alive in all honesty. Lifting him a good foot off the ground, Chameleon walked over to one of the pits and threw him into it. Opening his now 'ordinary' human mouth, a sizzling green mist spat out over his victim who let out several agonized gurgles while his clothes and skin bubbled and singed at the touch of the fine acidic spray. He looked over to the cement truck he'd been hiding on earlier, grabbed it's rear and began dragging it. With his supreme strength it was easily done. Looking at the man who was lying helplessly in the hole, he reached up and grabbed a handle on the side of the spinning drum. "No hard feelings." He began lowering the drum of cement and caused the grey liquid to spill out, covering the squirming man. Whenever the pit was filled with about 4 feet of the soon to be stone prison, Chameleon grinned before turning around and walking back.

The 'leader' had had a disturbance. If this man was as much of a guard dog as he seemed, it's only fitting he would go to make sure everything was ok and if he was told off for it "oh sorry boss I heard a big noise is all."

Not to mention he wanted to know what the hell was going on and why these people were even here.

John was taken off guard and his throat was slashed, immediately activating his healing factor. Before his insanely fast regen could really take effect though, another slash to his neck came and he was thrown into a nearby hole. He gasped and struggled painfully to recover, but lost consciousness from the pure agony of it. He did heal shortly, but he was not even awake to try to burst from the concrete that was thickly covering him. It seemed John had been replaced.

Lucius was still having fun with the little wind meta human that showed up to disrupt this operation, if one could call it that. The rope constructs were now burrowing into the male, literally impaling him in mostly none vital areas. Lucius didn't want to kill the meta human for no reason, bottom line was he didn't have to, so he wouldn't. After squeezing and breaking the bones of the would be hero, Lucius dropped him to the floor. He was too injured to be a problem.

"You might want to gimp on out of here, this building is about to come crashing down." Lucius warned. He wouldn't intentionally kill this kid, but he wouldn't go out of his way to protect him either. He sat and began to meditate in a sense, charging up enough power to bring this place down. It wouldn't take long now. But then John showed up.

"What......what the hell are you doing here? Get back to your position! Unless you want to be blown to hell." Lucius spat. He knew this one was not all there, but this was somehow beyond even him in the realms of stupidity.

When the time Chameleon made it to Red Tide, the person who had been making the noises had already began to fly away. Towards the south-east, into Chinatown. Chameleon blinked, making a note. He turned to look at his boss, who yelled at him for being so close. He kept a dull expression but on the inside he was quite shocked in all honesty. They're blowing the place up?! He staggered backwards. "uhh..... sorry boss, I just heard screamin' and thought tha- I'll get outta here boss." He turned and began running. Chameleon himself loathed explosions. They embodied everything he despised. They were loud, drew attention and were too... barbaric. Although he had to admit, they got the job done.

He made it back to where he buried The Wall before the explosion had gone off, and brought his hands to his ears. They were blowing this place up... the man was bathed in energy. Are they meta-humans, like me? His eyes looked to the side out of thought. What was this place? Maybe they weren't here to try and steal his kill. No, they were here for a much more volatile reason. Hmph. He'd hoped to leave this here but now they had both his attention and his curiousity. If he was a meta-human, then it was likely that 'Bell' and 'Pretty Boy' were as well. He'd have to tread carefu- His train of thought was interupted by an explosion.

In the next moment everyone's vision would likely be effected by the blinding crimson light of Lucius' energy. The entire construction site lit up as the explosion pulsed outward, eating anything in its path. The sheer size of this explosion was insane, the entire thirty floor building had been enveloped in only a few moments. The building soon collapsed, what was left of it anyway, it was for the most part dust by the time the energy faded. Walking out of the rubble Lucius made his way to his closest underling, who happened to be John.

"Daniel, get Isabel over here and lets go before everyone realizes what just happened." Lucius said, tapping his communicator. The man still had energy radiating from him, though it was just the glow, it was pretty much harmless unless Lucius didn't want it to be. After such a blast his emotions were all over the place, he had a lot of anger that he was trying to temper, this damn side effect was such a pain in the ass.

"Don't ever.....ever, do something so stupid. Follow my orders exactly or you have no place in my operations." Lucius said through slightly gritted teeth. In the next moment Daniel and Isabel appeared, and they were all ready to go just in time.

Closing his eyes and grimacing, he saw pieces of rock smack into the ground beside him. Was it done? He slowly turned, the light that was still in the air causing him to squint his eyes a little. Through the dust and the burning red rock, came the hooded figure that had led this little band to the building. He spoke into the earpiece and Chameleon listened, soaking up information even in this particularly explosive. Daniel and Isabel. Bell was obviously the latter so the former had to be 'Pretty Boy'. Now he just had one small question. What was his name.

The cloaked man seemed mad. So much so that Chameleon almost felt bad for getting whoever he just killed in trouble. He looked down slightly before speaking quietly. "... Sorry boss."

He prepared to leave. He was going to see how far this particular rabbit hole went.

(( I believe we can end it here. ))