Faircrest Woods, Roseview_
"Not exactly sure why they're yelling or annoyed." Kannix thought to herself as her left hand glided near the wall, her fingers tracing the different textures of the wall as she passed. Wall to door frame to wall again, she paused to see if the room behind the door would reveal anything, testing the knobs to see if they were locked. Each room she would walk into really showed nothing of interest, though she did have no clue as to what to look for.
Speaking of not having a clue, the beratement she received from her clique... well- Hell, why be worried? They were metahumans! If anything should go wrong, then they'd just get out of there. Kannix'd just break through the walls to escape. Surely, with their skillsets, they'd all be fine. She tested the doorknob on the latest door she passed.
Locked.
"Hmmm."At the end of the hallway too. Interesting.
Kannix braced herself at the opposite wall and with her right leg at the ready, she pocketed her phone and breathed. Gentle now, as she energized an infinitesimal amount of power to break the door down.
One. Two. And...
Kannix shot through with not so loud of a bang this time. The frame was still intact but the door was basically gone - shattered into so many small pieces from an obscene amount of kinetic energy pushed back onto and into itself. Kannix overestimated just how much power she needed and how weak the door was. As she reached for her phone for her source of light, what she saw only confirmed what she thought of the door: the rest of the room was old and rotten as fuck.
Rows upon rows of seats that escalate up with steps, each seat with its own desk, with the whole thing in a semi circle around a podium in the middle. Kannix could only guess that this was what a college classroom would look like. She'd never been inside a classroom this big and grand. She walked towards ans up the step to try and grasp just what could have taken place in this room.
"Huh." She spoke to herself, perturbed slightly at the lack of reverb from her utterance. "What a neat room."
Suddenly, a hand wrapped around her wrist, and Kannix turned to see Penny Rosier panting for air as she stared her dead on. Not breaking eye contact even for a moment. There wasn't much time before she said, "Hey Candice," Penny said in between pants. "Know what you're doing right now... ?" She asked.
"Kannix. I'm-"
"
Fucking everything up," Penny said as she gestured back towards the door. Her grip on Kannix's arm got tighter. She spoke very passive aggressively, like a dose of venom was in each and every word, "Candice, I know you wanna help, I
do, but I don't know if you know, but we're looking for
clues to my father."
She got a little closer, resisting the urge to punch her in the face. "Know what's counter-intuitive to that goal...?"
"Kannix. You leaning in to kiss me with that love-grip of yours." Kannix winked, barely registering the hand around her wrist. "Anyway, me breaking things and attracting attention is what you want me- you to say. Yeah, I know. Did you not want that thing destroyed, though?" This time, Kannix coupled that question with a look of genuine, honest interest.
This girl had to suffer from some extreme form of mental retardation... Honestly, Penny wondered where the hell did Wendy find these people. Irrelevant. What actually mattered was that she got the girl under control. She huffed and puffed for a few more moments, before she focused and said, "I'd love to see that statue destroyed, but not when we just got here, and the chance of the place falling down is
very realer than your tits right now."
She let go of Kannix, and rolled her eyes, "And if
one clue to my father gets damaged in
any way by your stupidity; I'm gonna tear those mosquito bites of yours clean off."
She crossed her arms, and quickly reached into her bag for a lollipop, and slid it in between her lips. At this point, Wendy's group arrived and came to a stop. Looking at Penny as she put an end to the situation.
Rowan was inclined to agree with her on this one - besides, if anyone had any right to trash this place it was Wendy, first and foremost, given what pain those assholes had caused her. But instead he kept his voice on the matter simple, "Save it for later."
"Course," Penny said as she casually scrolled along the group and said. "Okay, if we're done with Candice here, Iet's stop walking around with our thumbs up our asses, and figure out our next course of action already - time's runnin' short."
"We should get started and look for cl-"
"We don't got time for that," Penny interrupted. "Know it goes against
every horror movie I've seen, but... we gotta split up to cover more ground."
"But..." Wendy trailed off, at this point, it didn't seem like that bad of an idea, except for the possible dangers that could lurk in here. Safety in numbers, after all. But, still, the less time they spend here the better. "My only concern with that is communic-" Before she could even finish that sentence, Penny quickly reached into her bag and pulled out walkie talkies.
"I got that shit
covered," Penny said, "Let's just decide who goes with who, and then we can move on already."
"I'm happy to go with anyone," Rori piped up. They'd been trailing behind carefully, making sure that their (shitty) wings didn't knock anything over. "I'm no good in a fight, but
all of you have that covered so that's not a problem." They shrugged. "Wendy and Rowan have done this stuff together before, right? Maybe they should be one group and the three of us the other? Or something like that..."
Rowan shrugged at Rori's suggestion, "I'll do whatever. Wen', maybe you should go with Rori - then I'll go with Penny Blart and help make sure Kannix doesn't trash anything else." Rori was someone who could've been trusted at least - and the truth was that Wendy was more than capable of handling herself. Besides, perhaps the last thing he wanted was one of those awkward film clichés that Penny had just mentioned where he stumbled around awkwardly in the dark after Wendy.
"Pen Blart sounds better," Penny injected with a sharp roll of her eyes. Seemingly unbothered by Rowan, given that it was a pretty stale-ass joke.
The idea of Wendy going in a pair with another person sounded like a great idea... given that Wendy could handle herself fine. Going with Rowan was the obvious choice, but that would leave Penny and Kannix unattended (or at least, attended by Kumiko). On the other hand, she could go with Rori, and leave Rowan with the group. Wendy trusted both Rowan and Kumiko to handle things (and prevent Kannix from doing anything stupid). Ultimately, she went with Rowan's suggestion.
"Actually, Rori," Wendy said as she stepped towards her friend. "I think you should come with me, and we'll explore the other side of the mansion."
With a nod of her head, she looked at Rowan. "We're fast enough that we can handle things there, you guys... just give us a shout if you find anything useful."
She took a few steps away, and faced Rori, "Let's go."
"Sure thing," Rori nodded. They were more than willing to go with Rowan and Wendy's suggestion - after all they had more experience than Rori did, and the reasons seemed good.
"Hopefully we manage to find something!" They were already moving away from the others as they talked.
"We'll hold the fort while you're gone, Wen!" Kumiko shouted out, before she turned her attention to Kannix. Kumi didn't know what was going through the girl's head at the time. Probably ecstasy, but Kumiko was going to keep an eye on her... for her own good.
Because it looked as if Penelope was ready to tear her head off at the slightest provocation!
But, taking a glance at Penny, the girl was more concerned with her phone.
"Hahaha." Kannix finally vocalized when the others made their move. "Anyway, lead the way, fellow Metahumans, lest I
break the whole building by accident." Here, she made dainty steps like one of those robbers in a cartoon show. "I'll lay back with Pencil because she keeps checking me out," following that with an intentional shit-eating grim that was sure to piss her the fuck off.
Kannix elected only a roll of Penny's eyes as she ignored this complete and utter waste of space. Instead, Penny came up with another idea so they're not here jerking off in this labyrinth of evil forever. She was sending a text or two to Daniel, her little connection to the Founding Family. Because if anyone knew this place, it was going to be him. She simply stood there texting with one hand, and had the other on her hip, flashlight in hand. Her phone buzzed with a ringtone which was quickly silenced when she pressed a button, and smiled.
"Alright boys and gals," Penny said as she slid her phone into her back pocket. "If we're gonna find
any information, how about we find the headmasters office? Which shoooooould be on the top floor?"
She looked among the group, before saying quick as lightning, "Any objections? No? Let's go!" Before she started marching, and expecting them to follow. "We gotta hope the stairs don't collapse."
As expected, the two agile members of the group were quick to traverse from one end of the mansion to the other.
Wendy's cellphone's flashlight shined the way as she went for the best place for locating information. Simply by following the signs, Wendy pushed open and old and creaky door, and shined her phone into a moderately sized room. She wished that the lights were on in this room, because she just found the jackpot.
A library!
It was a rectangular room, that had shelves built into the walls. Lined with hundreds of books, not the biggest library Wendy has seen. But, there was still information here that she could glean. She ignored the dirty furniture in the room, and quickly went from book to book.
"Rori," Wendy started off, not even looking at her as she cheerfully examined the collection. "This is... such a collection of knowledge."
She pulled a book off with her paper powers, and it fluttered for a moment, as she examined it.
"I could spend
hours in here, and still want more.." Wendy softly said, before abruptly closing the book. "But, I have to stay focused. But... where do you think we should even start...?"
"I have no idea," Rori's mouth hung open slightly as they looked around all of the books. There were so many! How would they even get through all of it? "Is it sorted somehow? There's so much to get through..."
They paused thoughtfully. "Doesn't really help us get through them all, but if I turn into an owl I'll be able to see a lot better cause of nightvision and all that. Might speed things up?"
"I'd love to just sit here and read all these books." Wendy softly said as she examined the cover of another book, a physics book, before putting it back. "One thing I noticed was that the books are organized into subject,
then alphabetically."
Then Wendy tapped her chin for a moment, before she said, "I wonder if the Family has a bookcase passageway...." She mused. "But nobody's
that cliche."
"It would be pretty handy if they did," Rori laughed, beginning to scan the books to try and figure out how they were organized. A book caught their attention - it had the word 'bird' in the title, of course, and they doubted it was anything near what they were looking forward. They still pulled it out to look at it.
They found it curious that the spine of the book seemed so worn, as did the ones that had been next to it. A glance down at the floor revealed barely visible scrape marks; the kind that only those with good vision could see. Acting on a hunch Rori put the book down and pulled out the ones next to it, before feeling around in the gap.
"Wendy, you are not going to believe this," Rori's face split into a wide grin as they pressed down into an indent in the wood. As they stepped back there was a click and the bookcase moved out slightly. "They really are that cliche!"
Wendy's jaw just dropped as the bookcase moved aside, she didn't expect such a thing here of all places! Maybe she should had used her paper manipulation to begin with, but no matter. Either way, there was a brand new place to explore! She walked over to the new entrance, and saw down a deep staircase. Wendy gestured for Rori to shine her flashlight down.
Using her own light from her phone, she slowly walked down the stairs, and felt the dirty, stagnant air that was sitting for ages now. She was tempted to cover her face, but she was more than certain that the air wasn't contaminated (At least she hoped). She hit the final floor, then casually looked around, shining her flashlight ahead. She saw a laboratory before her. Counters covered in old dusty lab equipment, and metal shelves with various chemicals. She raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure... this couldn't have been a creation of Sean's," Wendy thought out loud, before she glanced at Rori. "Too large scale... probably an extra lab."
Rori had followed behind Wendy, holding the flashlight out so it lit up the area, looking around at what they'd found in awe. To think that something like this had been gathering dust underground. They were glad they'd managed to find it. "It is very big, it could take us all day to explore it..."
And there was the fact that this was out of Sean's area of expertise, this was probably.... Maybe Wendy could find a clue down here. She shined the light ahead, and saw a rather expansive hallway. There was much more to see down here. She grabbed the walkie talker, and said,
"Hey guys, we found a library underneath the building," Wendy said, only to hear no response. "Damn it, it must be because we're underground... Rori, can you go upstairs?" She extended the walkie talkie out for Rori to grab.
"Sure thing!" Rori cheerfully took the walkie talkie and backed away a few steps. "Just shout to me if you need me to come back down."
They quickly retraced their steps back up to the first library. They assumed the walkie talkie would work from here considering they were no longer underground. Otherwise it was a bit useless.
"Uh, hey, we found a lab under the building," Rori said into the device. "It's pretty expansive and Wen's down there just now."
"Where i-" Penny's voice replied before suddenly turning to static.
"Huh? You there, Penny?" Rori looked at the walkie talkie in confusion, hitting it a few times and pressing some buttons to no avail. "Well, shit."
Rori quickly jogged back down the stairs. "Hey, Wen, it's not working! I only talked into it so I don't think it was me... I heard Penny but then it went all staticy. I didn't manage to tell them where we are."
"Shit," Wendy said, hissing through her teeth. Of course Penny gave them a shitty and defective item. Probably wanted to hog all the glory for herself. "
Of course this thing doesn't work. We'll have to-"
"... It doesn't work because I'm jamming it," The girls heard the voice and turned around, to see a person in black armor. Just leaning up against the wall holding onto the strap of their massive, high-tech, rifle. Their armor was jet-black, with a kevlar vest, and armor centered in the knee, chest, and shoulder area. They had on a full helmet that concealed their face, but only one glowing eye that appeared like a high-tech night vision goggle. Wendy recognized the logo of the snarling dog...
"... The Hound," Wendy said as she took a few steps back, reaching into her satchel to grab a piece of concrete.
"Calm down," The ZODIAC said. "I'm just here to deliver a message."
"From [i]who?[/]" Wendy asked.
"The Foundation Woman would like to have a word with you."
Rowan jabbed a foot against a door that had been left ajar, pointing the beam of his torch into the hallway ahead. Penny was the one that was right behind him, and waited for the coast to be clear. She was the first to go past Rowan to quickly find some damn stairs. According to Daniel, all they had to do was go to the very top floor, and follow the arrows! Penny shined her flashlight on a set of arrows that fell down on the ground pointing towards the science, and political rooms.
Okay, maybe they won't be that fucking helpful.
Eventually, they came across the staircase... only to see that a significant piece of it had collapsed in on itself. Leaving a gap that was far too wide to leap, and Penny merely rolled her eyes. "Ho-fuckin'-rah, our first obstacle." Penny said with a completely dry (albeit annoyed) tone. A flash of green light pulsed across her from head to toe, and spider-legs appeared out of her back. An eldritch sight, but her legs carried her to the other side, before they retracted into her back, and she crossed her arms.
"Well, the fuck are you all waiting for?" Penny said. "Superpower your way across the gap." She jazz handed.
Kannix, in immediate response, energized herself and her legs propelled her potential energy against the mass of the stairwell. She landed on the other side, but the staircase below shook violently, a consequence of her abilities.
"Jazz hands!"
Penny was compelled to push Kannix into the gap, but refrained from getting her murder on. For now.
"Nice," Rowan remarked, fingers twitching inwards as he took a hold of the metal bands that he'd left coiled around his arms and legs, then winced as one of the bands touched against the dressing concealing his recent burn. Within a few moments, he had crossed the gap via his crude form of levitation, touching down at the top with a clunk that only elicited a further groan from the floor beneath them. In consensus with Penny on this matter, he gave Kannix a sharp look, "Try not to wreck the place whilst we're still in the fucking thing, yeah? We need things intact."
"Don't be so rough on her, guys! She's just... a little excited." Kumiko shouted in defense of Kannix as the tip of her chains transformed into a harpoon, and she threw it across the gap. Creating a tight rope out of chains. She looked at the group, and said, "Please come get me if I fall down."
She sighed, as she walked across the makeshift tightrope with both of her hands out to maintain balance. This was something she did
easily when she was in the Intimidation Unit... but, she was a bit out of practice. She took careful steps, until she was on the other side. She knelt down, and pulled the chain back to her hip.
"Yeah! Just excited!" Kannix exclaimed giddily. "I don't think we, let alone I, need much before the whole place comes down. Hustle, hustle!" She rushed back the three up the stairs to its upper floor, each step echoing the struggle of its decaying wood panels straining against their weight. Impressive she did not break down the whole thing the first time.
"But don't get
too-" Kumiko tried to warn, and earned a sharp look from Penny.
"... I'm going to strangle you." Penny said, as she slowly continued.
Kannix watched the three slowly walk up but turned to examine what was in store for them. Kannix pouted in the face of another hallway with a lot of doors.
"No breaking them down!" Kannix thought, mocking Pennis.
As the three came up, they caught a glimpse of Kannix reaching out to feel the old fabric on the nearest wall... only for it to fall away from her touch, exposing the contents of the first room.
"...Okay you all saw that, I didn't do shit."
It was at this point that Rowan simply shrugged, then stepped past her, passing the torch beam across the room to see what awaited them inside.
Penny merely rolled her eyes and continued past Kannix, and poked her head inside to see an office. Probably one of the many offices by the teachers, but the whole place looked like someone desperately tried to grab all the files, and then leave. Papers everywhere, probably because of the broken windows, but there was no wind in hell that could force open a filing cabinet. But, it was the tablet on the side that told Penny that they found it.
HEADMASTER'S OFFICE
Penny fist pumped as she quickly pushed the door open, and said, "Right, boys and gals," Penny said. "We need to find the personnel list, and see if my father's on it."
Then she looked at just how much of a wreck it was, then slouched as she said, defeated.
"Okay now I wish we had fucking paper girl," Penny said to herself, before she turned to Kannix. "Hey Kannix... how about you watch the door?" She said with a slight smile.
"Mwuah." Kannix blew a kiss to Penny. Penis can kiss her ass.
Without Wendy it was going to be a pain in the ass trying to piece all the scattered files together, especially as it looked as though some had been damaged in the haste to retrieve them and by the subsequent exposure to the elements. "Rosier, Sean Rosier..." Rowan muttered as he began to sift through what had been left behind, holding the torch close to the documents he found in hope of finding something legible, or at least worthwhile, but as noted by both himself and Penny before, it was going to be a needle in a haystack with Wendy and her magic touch. Clutching at straws, he glanced over his shoulder towards Penny and asked her, "Your dad have any other name? Anything else to follow him by?"
"Bruce Hewett." Penny said as she went through the papers, hoping to find something. "That's off the top of my head, from what I could tell, he didn't like using his real name around whoever wasn't one of the Blessed Cunts."
"Sure," Rowan said, making a mental note to keep an eye out for it. A few names came by, but eventually...
Hewett. To be specific,
B. Hewett. "Hewett, you said?" he asked, waving the dust-coated file for her viewing. Opening the file, he skimmed few a through of the details, looking for something to suggest where they could look and eventually he found an entry which suggested where his office was based.
"Gimme that." Penny said as she quickly stepped forward, and grabbed it, and read it in record speed. So, he had an office... Which meant they had to do more searching... she really hoped that this didn't become some stupid scavenger hunt. "It's on this floor. Right? Let's go."
Penny walked past, but before she left, she had to congratulate Kannix, "Good job, Candice!"
Then they walked down the hallway until they arrived at the office of Bruce Hewett, Penny opened the door, and it looked relatively in one piece... other than the bits and pieces of the wall that fell apart. She quickly went for the filing cabinets in hopes of finding the next clue. Penny raised her head and looked at the group. "Alright guys, tear the fucking place apart! I want no stone uncovered, alright!" She ordered the group.
"You sure about that, sweetiepie?" Kannix winked, arms crossed, spoken aloud. She felt as if she could just walk through these walls and they'd come crashing down. The methodical approach with a living bulldozer.
"You haven't been anywhere like this before, have you?" Rowan asked, almost frowning.
Kannix's home was very much like this. Good ol' Spring Town.
"Nah. You guys have fun."
To that he gave a shrug, before turning his gaze towards a pair of filing cabinets that Penny hadn't already set to work on and began to pry a few of their draws out of place.
Tear the fucking place apart, those were her exact words - and so he decided to oblige her. Once the draws were set down on the floor for whoever to read through, he shone his torch beam across the rest of the space, looking for anything else that might've been noteworthy - on a desk at the far side of room was an overturned monitorand when Rowan peered over to see what awaited them on the other side, he found the husk of a desktop computer opened up and stripped bare that could've been useful to them. "Someone took the hard drive," he found himself thinking aloud,
Wendy's inquisitive nature had rubbed off on him. Only then he realised that even if it had been left intact exposure to the elements would've probably fucked it, so what did it matter?
"Anything?" Rowan asked again, looking over his shoulder towards the others.
"I can't find shit in these files! Only stupid bullshit like which fucker is which!" Penny said as she slammed shut a filing cabinet out of irritation, causing dust to fall off the wall. "Shit, we're gonna have to keep looking! He worked here there has to be-"
"Uh, hey, we found a lab under the building," Rori's voice appeared in the walkie talkie, and it was almost muffled by Penny's complaints. "It's pretty expansive and Wen's down there just now."
"Wait, wait, wait, hold the fuck up!" Penny said out loud as she grabbed the walkie talkie. "Where is it?" Penny asked in a rushed tone
But, she didn't hear a reply. "C'mon, where are you at?!" Penny replied, before huffing and saying, "Fuck! These walkies don't even work right! Or bird brain can't do shit!"
"Well, if you're done having a tantrum, Penny," Kumiko chimed in, with a coy smile on her face, and holding something behind her back. "Guessssss what I found!"
She held a small case, and opened it up, and it had a micro SD card inside of it. Penny damn near tripped as she tried to get over to Kumiko.
"Fuck, where did you find this?!" Penny asked.
"Oh, I have my ways..."
"Yeah, that's good and everything, but maybe we should check on the others?" Rowan cut in at the end, raising an eyebrow. Rori had mentioned a lab, just before the radio had cut out. And labs meant trouble, if past experiences were anything to go by. It
probably was just the radio being shitty, but... "You heard Rori. Gotta be somethin' worth checking on down there."
Penny was more eager to check out this SD card, but she knew that Eminem here wanted to make sure his girlyfriend was okay. Penny could tell that from the look in his eyes, not this lab bullshit. Honestly, while she just thought the radio connection was just shitty, she knew that wasting time arguing with him would get her nowhere. Besides, they already have something.
"C'mon, then," Penny said as she gestured for the group to follow. "I bet everything's gonna be cool."
