Kricket/Ms. Fortune (Both Must Be Available)

Kricket and Ms. Fortune are sent out, Kricket using his mobility to expedite the journey to the scene, allowing Ms. Fortune to save her psychic energy for the task ahead.

In that short time the situation has devolved, the suspects are visibly intoxicated by an unknown substance and shambling about, speaking in garbled repetitive patterns.

They’re clearly chanting something but neither the surveillance drones nor the heroes on the field can make out what they’re saying.

“Ehr ohn ah… wholy mehission, bruhders ahn shishtrs..!” One of them cries, a bearded man well into his 70s, his body emaciated as his skin sticks tight to his bones.

Each of the members of this group are dressed in what must have been fine clothing once, all of which now ruined by grime, wear and tear.

Dresses and skirts are shredded, shirts are missing more buttons then not and every pair of pants are stained black from the knees downwards.

Everyone’s eyes are half-lidded, men’s faces are adorned by unkempt facial hair while women have smeared makeup across their faces that they haven’t bothered to reapply or remove in its entirety.

Fortune scans the group, not sure how to proceed before Kricket takes initiative when he spots a familiar face.

“K.. Kel…?” He asks, confusion and concern clear even through the coms. He rushes over to a girl a little older than himself, stopping just short of touching her once he notices the dead look in her eye.

You reach for your mic, opening a line directly to Kricket’s helmet as he scans the poor thing.

“You know this girl Kricket?” You ask as the drone feed zooms in a little, the large screen now displaying the girls weathered, haggard features, she was a pretty thing once, almost waifish in body shape with her face framed by matted black curls that have almost become dread-like in form.

“Y.. yeah… her name is Kelsi Langford.. she worked the front desk at the mayors office… she… I thought she left town…” he says, his voice strained, he’s holding something back but you sense it’s not pertinent information, Kricket is rash and impulsive but he wouldn’t purposely try to hamper a call.

They continue with their tasks, not speeding up, not slowing down, like zombies milling about, spreading trash as several of them break off to journey back to the various trucks presumably to procure more refuse.

“Kels… where have you been…? Who are these people…?” Kricket asks, prompting no response from the girl other then a low murmuring that neither the drone nor Kricket can parse.

The girl seems spacey, almost like she’s intoxicated but Kricket reports no mention of **** on her breath, her pupils are dilated but other signs of **** use are largely absent.

In an attempt to reach the young woman, Kricket lays a hand upon the woman’s shoulder, an act that seems to have drawn the attention of the entire crowd as they drop what their doing and turn to stare at Kricket with that dead stare.

Noticing the others move in Fortune calls over to Kricket, alerting him to the sudden shift in mood, just in time for him to avoid Ms Langford taking a chuck out of his forearm.

The old man from before, jumps up onto the hood of a car, crying out in a howl for all to hear but few to understand.

“Ye sink in duh muck er duh muck sinks in ye! Gut dem nonbeavers! Necra whills hit!” If nothing else, his tone leaves no mystery to the order as they close in slowly, their bodies wobbling on unsteady legs.

Kricket backs away from the crowd, placing two fingers to the side of his helmet to access the comms, speaking to you directly.

“Chief these guys ain’t criminals, they’re sick, I just know it… Kelsi would never…” he says before being cut off.

“Wether they’re sick or not is irrelevant right now, they are a threat to themselves and others and must be brought in before we lose these hostages” you state, your tone giving no room for argument as Kricket slowly nods his head.

A gust of wind blows down the street, kicking up old newspapers, cardboard boxes, candy wrappers and other refuse sending the debris into the faces of the crowd, the brief moment of blindness proving enough to ruin their remaining coordination, tripping over themselves or one another leading to a dunno effect that sends every suspect onto their hands and knees or onto their backs.

The feed shows Ms. Fortune wincing softly as she stares at the crowd, raising a hand to her skull as she shouts over to Kricket.

“G.. get the hostages..! I can hold them a little while longer….” Her voice is strained, seemingly using her power to keep them in the ground as every time they try to claw their way back to their feet their hands slip or another suspect leans too hard into them sending them back to the ground.

Kricket approaches the lanes of cars, systematically shouting for them to flee their vehicles, helping them escape in some cases as the trash littering the road was so immense in some places that commuters quite literally couldn’t open their doors. The sound of car doors popping open and scampering feet against pavement can be heard over the drone feed as it focuses on the scuffle.

With each passing second Fortune grows more and more encumbered by her mental strain, finally it seems she can hold them down no longer as she stumbles backwards, both hands clutching at her skull as blood trickles down her nose.

The suspects are undeterred, shortly thereafter rising to their feet without issue, the large group splitting in half to pursue both capes.

The group breaking off to pursue Kricket has a hard time keeping up with the man as he always stays out of arms reach using his deceptively powerful legs to hop away.

However it seems Fortune is having a much harder time, still coming down from her mental fatigue as she backs away, summoning up the strength to cause small nuisances like the sun reflecting off a passing car to blind an attack, allowing her to slip past a lethal blow or one of the mob stepping into a pothole that causes them to trip, falling flat in their face into the road.

It won’t be long before they over take her, each small inconvenience Fortune sends forth causes her body to twitch and writhe, if she keeps up like this, she’s going to push herself into a seizure.

Once more you reach for the mic, ordering Kricket to rotate to support Fortune, a tall order considering he and Fortune are located on opposite sides of the intersection.

With two great bounding leaps he covers the distance, at least 50ft in total, landing between Fortune and her pursuers, allowing her to create some distance and begin to recover.

Seeing the horde stumbling forward, Kricket turns his focus to his gauntlets, turning mobs located on the back of the hands before bringing the palms together in a clap, but the noise isn’t deafening, in fact aside from the clack of the gauntlets coming together, all is silent through the drone feed.

The crowd stops in its tracks, as though caught in an invisible wall, their hands reaching down to grip their stomachs, many of which doubling over to vomit into the street. One by one they topple over, fainting from the power of those gauntlets and the infrasound they created.

Down the road, the other group of suspects watch as their fellows fall to the group **** when suddenly, a switch is flipped, just as suddenly as the hostilities began, they now end with each member of the group breaking out in a sprint in the opposite direction of the heroes, You give the order to give chase after the suspects.

Kricket takes off after them, leaving Fortune behind to recover as he pursues the suspects, disturbingly however, the suspects move blindingly fast which when combined with their staggering gait makes them look wrong to stare at.

The suspects turn a corner at another intersection and when Kricket reaches it they manage to catch the last member of the strange group climbing down a storm drain and disappearing from sight.

Kricket pokes his head inside, radioing in to report. “Boss, I won’t be able to jump much down there, they’ll outrun me…” he says before turning back to glance at the drone that hovers nearby.

The sewers of the city is labyrinthian to say the least; the city having been destroyed several times over the years, they had to rebuild the servers as well with each new version of the sprawling infrastructure being placed over the last one.

To pull up an up to date map of the city and its many levels of sewers would take too long, especially considering the speed with which those… things ran.

You call back the troops, thankfully they managed to save the hostages and capture most of the disheveled vagabonds for questioning, Krickets friend included by those captured seem to be caught in some kind of hibernation, completely numb to all external stimuli like zombies that just stand around in their holding cells, staring off into nothing.