Mayor Terrence Finn, a Middle Aged Dwarf, paced back and forth in his office as he waited for the recruits to show up. He had posted notices in every police station and online, looking for volunteers. He'd even asked a local UK task force for help. So far, though, he'd only found three locals willing to take the job, and the task force had only sent one agent to help. It was a start, at least.

When the time for the meeting had come his secretary let the group inside. "Ah, yes, welcome, welcome." he said, nervously once the group had entered. "As you, of course, know, there have been multiple attacks on non-humans in this city. The police are at a loss to stop it. The attacks seem random, more like they were part of the normal racism, but the killers all leave the symbol of the city of Claus, a Reindeer with a sword and axe behind it, on the bodies, sometimes stuck to them, one time pinned to the wall beside what was left of the body. While the police can protect the non-human members of government, and the leaders of industries have stepped up security, that has left us with a bit of a police shortage, which means I can't really devote detectives to trying to locate them.

When I posted this job we didn't really have much to go on, but last night we got lucky. One of their operatives chased his victim into a pizza parlor and got himself Torpored by the chef when he opened fire. We have him in a cell at the precinct next door. He's likely your best bet to track down their base of operation in this city. Any questions?"

Sam stood in the back of the office sucking on a cherry lollipop and listening to the little man pitch his deal in front of the motley group that showed up after answering the ad for help.. It was a sad case really, and even sadder that the local law enforcement was unable to do jack. But, as much as the girl didn’t like to see violence happening to anyone or anything, she also couldn’t help but raise a question that was no doubt on everyone else's mind as she pulled the wet lollipop from between her lips...

“Um, what is it that we’re doing here exactly?” She said, mockingly raising her hand as though she were in class, but without waiting for permission from the teacher to speak. “I mean, I know why I’m here, because there was money involved…” Sam scratched the stubble along her shaven scalp. At least I’m pretty sure there was some kind of monetary compensation, because frankly, I need to eat.”
The girl was taller than an average human female, except, she wasn’t human at all, even though most of the forms she generally took were human-like, whether man or woman, young or even old. She’d never quite understood the significance of it all, her shifting ability, and what purpose it really held for her race of Changelings. But, over the years it stopped mattering so much, and she’d found herself living multiple lives, switching through identities until one would suit her taste. This one, of course, had been her current form, a tall female with a shaved head, clothing indicative of a gothic-punk scene, and an attitude to fit her already angst-driven personality. She thrived off the tension of life. She fed off the friction.

“Oh, and I don’t know about the rest of you deadbeats, but I gotta be somewhere in like a couple of hours so can we hurry this up?” Figuring she’d said enough, Sam slid the lollipop back into her mouth, and giving the mayor a quite wink.

Zrell sighed, this was depressing; the group that had assembled was mediocre at best and at worst would be completely useless. He guessed that the two kids had probably never been in a proper fight before, not some 'I'm gonna rough this guy up for what he just said' fight but a proper 'Someone's going to die' fight, the army looking guy seemed serious though.
The punk kid's comment wasn't appreciated, the last thing a group like this needs is low morale. He glanced over at them, they were probably twice his height; deciding that he'd rather not have to look up at them he turned away again saying "I think he meant useful questions kid," deciding not to wait for the kid to respond he continued "Aren't these Claus freaks all fanatics, what makes you think we can get anything out of him other than blood and racial slurs? Let alone getting him to tell us where all his friends are hiding out. I mean if I were some pure human psycho the last thing I'd do is let some 'racially impure vermin' get the better of me, even if I did lose a few fingernails."
Having made his point he reclined himself on one of the mayors comfy chairs, had he been taller he would have put his feet up on the table but he couldn't reach and didn't want to make a fool of himself by trying. He got out his dagger and started figeting with it, he'd turned it into a butterfly knife but was considering turning it back into a fancy ritual dagger again.

Icarus stood closer to the middle of the room, standing in an 'At Ease' position mainly out of habit. His uniform was black in colour, with the flag of New London, a white unicorn and a gold lion fighting on top of a black shield on a white flag, sewn onto the top of left sleeve and the flag of the UK, 4 black lines in an X formation around 2 more forming a + over a gold flag, on the right, with the symbol of Aegis, A winged sword over a shield surrounded with a laurel, underneath them on both sides. His sidearm was still in its holster on his thigh, but the rest of his rigging had been left behind for the meeting, along with the helmet and cloak he normally wears on missions.

He frowned at the blatant disrespect from the shaved girl, but took a second to breathe and calm himself. He was grateful for the Imp cutting in when he did, saving him from having to make his own comment. It didn't sit well with him that she seemed to completely disregard the fact that innocent people were murdered, simply due to the prejudices of those that considered themselves better because of a stagnant, unchanging bloodline. He mentally conceded the small humanoid's point about the resilience of the fanatics, thinking back to past conflicts against similar groups and even against groups from the City of Claus itself, but they were far from unbreakable. Their fanaticism made them tough but they were still only human, far outclassed by races like the Orcs, Vs'ks'thi and even some subspecies of Therianthrope in their endurance.

He turned to the Imp, nodding slightly before he voiced his opinion.

"I agree they're resilient, but they're only human. As much as I dislike using particularly... harsh methods of interrogation, They're far from unbreakable."

He turned his head back to where the Mayor was standing.

"Do you know if the investigation has turned up any other information, something that might help us narrow down the area before we question him, or get him to talk? Also, an Telepath would be useful to extract information he doesn't want to give up voluntarily, So I'd like to know if there's one available to help."

Rariya Lelaine

---

She fidgeted nervously as the mayor spoke to the small group, looking rather out of place amidst them. Indeed, she stood out from the rest by virtue of looking relatively normal, having only her uniform and bag with her.

Rariya had been on cleaning duty for the day, when one of her classmates mentioned the notice. She wasn't too sure what it was about, but since her friend suggested that she should go and see what happens, here she was. A crisis like this certainly wasn't she expected. At most, Rariya would have thought she'd be handing out flyers and such. But, if the mayor was already relying on her to do this, then it was kinda hard for her to refuse. At the very least, she will try to do her best with whatever task she was given.

When the mayor stopped talking, she opened her mouth to say something, before the bald woman started to speak.

Having lost her chance to say something, Rariya continued on fidgeting, a smile on her face. If at all possible, she would have liked to not do any bad things to the prisoner. Perhaps she could help with the information finding, or have some of her friends look up things, but there was no way she could say anything now. Not with the current mood hanging heavy in the air.

“Um, what is it that we’re doing here exactly?” She said, mockingly raising her hand as though she were in class, but without waiting for permission from the teacher to speak. “I mean, I know why I’m here, because there was money involved…” Sam scratched the stubble along her shaven scalp. "At least I’m pretty sure there was some kind of monetary compensation, because frankly, I need to eat.”

"You are here, Madam, to stop the attacks on the citizens of this city, though I suspect that it will involve other cities, and may be more than simply terrorist attacks by radicals. It is confidential matter, need to know only, but we are not the only city to be attacked. Alberta, Seattle, Moscow, even Dublin have had similar attacks, though the police there have chosen to keep the terrorist nature of the murders a secret." He looked at Icarus. "I suspect that's why the UK was only able to spare a single agent. Dublin may have left the alliance a decade ago, but it's too close to their borders to ignore. If this is, as they suspect, an attempt to soften us up for invasion, or an attempt to start a civil war, they'll want to protect their own citizens first."

After listening to Zrell and Icarus's comments on the nature of the enemy the Mayor shook his head. "I doubt he'll be as tough as you think. He's not from Claus, he was born and raised in New York. He's not even a full human. A routine genetic test when he was arrested showed that he has a single Elven chromosome. It isn't enough to seriously effect his biology, but it will prevent them from fully accepting him until he proves himself in a serious way. They may have trained him to act as their agent, though, so he won't be a pushover. In fact, since you mentioned a telepath, I've had Detective Li, a Watcher, try to see what he could get out of the suspect. So far, he's proven fairly resistant to telepathic probes, though his "concentrate on something unrelated" technique of resistance isn't perfect. The Detective can fill you in on the details."

The mayor picked up four badges off the desk, handing one to each person. "You may not need this, depending on your strategy, but I hereby deputize all of you to work on this case. This will mean that the police will cooperate with you if you show them the badge, but don't expect too much cooperation. The Sheriff's department ranks pretty low on the law enforcement scale as far as the police are concerned."

Icarus nodded at the mayor's assessment of his deployment but didn't elaborate, given the sensitive nature of the subject. He was the only operative sent by Aegis, at least the only one to the Mayor's knowledge. He was, in truth, sent over as part of a covert strike-team, but this was kept classified from everyone not involved in the mission. Even Alyssa didn't know, and he always told her about his missions so she wouldn't overthink things. He had practically no contact with the other members of his team, given a near radio-silence imposed on them by command, but he knew that the four of them were hidden around the city, searching for information too sensitive for the police force to handle.

He brought his focus back to the room in time to catch the description of the captured extremist, and with it the mention of Detective Li. He thought back on his previous experiences working alongside Telepaths, and how Aegis interrogators are trained to assist them. If he wasn't as resilient as he expected, like the Mayor said, it would be fairly easy to get him to focus on what they needed with the right motivation.

He took the badge from Dwarven man before casting an uncertain glance towards the schoolgirl. He wasn't sure what a girl like was even doing at this meeting, whether she had some kind of innate talent or had simply misunderstood the request, but he was uncomfortable with the idea of bringing her into fold, especially how Icarus planned to go about it. Sweeping his gaze across the group, he realised that no-one had yet introduced themselves. Thusly, he decided to put some names to the faces in front of him.

"If we're going to work together, we're going to need to know what to call each other. I am Lt. Icarus Ryder, Aegis 1st Battalion."

Accepting his badge from the mayor Zrell wondered how useful it would really be in a situation with the police, though he guessed it would still be useful on civilians who didn't know the difference he could already think of some good uses for it.
Hearing someone speak Zrell turned his head to look up at Icarus, though nearly identical to humans Zrell could always tell a null out from a group of people by the black spot they created in his omnidirectional senses. He hoped that they wouldn't be so formal the entire time they were working together, part of him wanted to reach into Icarus and take out some of his formality so that he could shove it into the punk girl. Oh well at least if he was a professional he wouldn't have any problems getting things done, meaning less effort for everyone else. Placing his knife and the badge inside his jacket Zrell replied to Icarus "Hey I'm Zrell, part time sorcerer/bodyguard, looks like we're working together now"
Then feeling self concious with everyone looking down at him, he used his telekinesis to float himself and his chair into mid air so that he was at eye level with the others. "Who are you two?" He said rotating himself to face the two girls before gliding over to them narrowly avoiding getting too close to Icarus and having his magic shut off.

For those few moments while the tall, lean military man was talking just to hear himself speak, Sam’s mind wandered for a moment as she watched what could only be described as a tiny ethereal three-headed Hydra dancing atop the little dwarf Mayor’s very old forehead. She watched in utter amazement because for whatever reason, the Mayor had no idea that this was even happening, even though each one of the monster’s tiny legs and clawed feet were stampeding rapidly during its strange and unusual jig.

“Hol-y shit...” She mumbled to herself, as her expression lit up to a cheesy grin watching the display unfold.

Her attention suddenly snapped to the one who called himself “Lt Icarus”, as though he was speaking directly to the young girl with the lollipop still embedded between her dark lips, and as she turned to look back at where the tiny Hydra had been perched atop the Dwarf’s head, it vanish in a vapor of mixed colors.

“What?” She blurted out with a slightly annoyed look, realizing that the military man and Imp were both staring at her and the other girl, who in Sam’s opinion looked more like a deer in headlights.

What she couldn’t shake, however, were those weird visions that like to rear their ugly faces. As entertaining as they may be at times, her innate abilities to cast spells of illusion and misdirection have also cause a sort of permanent side-effect, and sometimes even the line between what is real and false becomes blurred.

“Eh...my name is Sam.” Her tone of voice made the simple statement sound more like a question. “I’m from the Lower East Side.” Sam nodded, because that was about all they were getting out of her at the moment.

Rariya Lelaine

---

Without a word, she accepted the badge.

A deputy? That was something she wasn't expecting to become when she came in here. But she had already accepted the badge, so it was even harder to say no right now. The things the Mayor was saying seemed rather incredible to be true. Some person was trying to kill them and simultaneously attacking other cities bad enough that it became confidential? The others who came in here seemed incredible too; there was a flying gnome thing, a very uptight looking military man, and a rather rough looking woman who she was sure could do incredible things as well.

Seeing as everyone was introducing themselves, she tried to speak as well."Ah.. I-I'm Rariya Lelaine. I'm from one of the local highschools, in my last year there."

With that she gave a deep bow towards them, before looking up with a genuine, albeit nervous, smile. "I can't really do much, but I'll be happy to help in any way I can."

Rariya felt kinda small next to them. Considering how serious they looked, they probably had abilities far greater than anything she could ever imagine, or at least have abilities stronger than what she had at the moment.

When the four new deputies arrived at the police station they were led to a room outside the cells, where TVs linked to security cameras kept watch over those in the cells. There sat a 5 foot tall grey man with a larger than human head and large eyes. "Detective Li." he said, "I take it you're the new deputies that the mayor sent over?" He pointed to one of the screens where a human male in his mid twenties sat listening to an IPod. "We gave him back his Ipod about ten minutes ago. So far, he's listened to three songs by the same band. I underlined the parts that resonated with him in the lyrics. At least we know his motive, now." He handed them a clipboard with lyrics sheets for every song on the Ipod, the top three sheets having most of their words underlined.