In the time it had taken to put out the fire and then keep the charred body covered, which resulted in Grim gagging at least once, the crow drones had gone crazy with alerts of various dangers nearby. And far away. And a medium amount of distance away just to complete the set.
In short, the city was in slightly more chaos than usual.
A quick alert to the Chicago P.D. of the location of the body - which likely wouldn’t be picked up for quite awhile - and Grim was taking off to the nearest commotion. The rising sun was a blessing and curse all in one, the sunlight chasing away the darkness that made up Grim’s powers while also elongating the shadows for some tricky maneuvering.
To be honest, even Grim wasn’t sure how his powers worked exactly. How do you manipulate the absence of light? A mystery. That’s why these things still weren’t well understood even in the modern day.
The scene the mask hero arrived to was a stand still of sorts - there was two police cruisers, four officers, all with guns drawn behind the doors of their cars aiming at a gleaming man. Much to Grim’s disappointment this wasn’t a sparkling vampire however - because honestly,
that would’ve been a story to tell - but rather every inch of the man’s body was what appeared to be a shining steel.
Also he was naked, which was another problem.
… Although it did explain why he was so angry.
The man of steel, having been initially ignoring the officers as he looked around, finally gave the shouting cops his attention. Predictably, he wasn’t too keen on following orders and merely laughed at their demands before just charging forward. They began shooting, but not even the force of the bullets ricocheting off metal man slowed him. He got dangerously close to the officers before a line of pure black shot out from the still-dark alley just in front of him, the solidified shadows using his own speed to clothesline him. He actually cracked the concrete.
“Ooo, so sorry about the
ruff landing! But don’t you know a good boy follows orders?” Despite the bone-deep tiredness in Grim, his voice was as loud and booming as ever as the hero popped out like a daisy from the shadows cast by one of the police cars. He gave a quick finger guns to the lady officer he emerged by before stepping forward, hands on his hips.
“Good trick.” The metal man rumbled, slowly peeling himself from the ground. “But it didn’t even leave a scratch. I’m gonna crack your head open for even trying to penetrate me.”
“Penet- are we not doing phrasing anymore?” Grim glanced over his shoulder to the officers, and was met by bewildered stares. Not unusual for him. He shook his head and looked forward to mutter. “No, absolutely not. I am a PG-13 rated hero and I will
not be taking that train to Banterbury.”
Before the metal man could do more than get to a knee, Grim lifted his hands. The long shadow the other man cast darkened, before claws shot out and slammed into him, the long fingers morphing to tendrils that wrapped around his upper body and face.
“So sorry my friend, but metal or not I think it’s time you were leashed!” It took a few moments before the shadows were beginning to give way around his upper body, but the more he struggled with that the more effective the covering over his face was. Just as he got a hand loose and began to reach up for his face, the lack of oxygen took hold and he went limp. It was a bit uneasy of a thing to stand by and watch, considering how long it can take for a person to fall unconscious from lack of oxygen, not to mention dangerous - but it was the safest option for everyone involved.
When the metal receded from the man’s body, Grim cautiously withdrew the shadows enough to form another hand, which poked the man. He didn’t stir, but he was breathing, so it was a win.
“Well, I do believe it’s your turn, officers!” Least of all because Grim didn’t particularly want to be handling another naked man tonight. Today. Whatever. However as the uniformed police finally went to move, what appeared to be the senior officer stopped beside him.
“Thanks for the hand, Grim. That was a tricky situation.” She inclined her head in a small nod, which Grim proceeded to respond to with another set of finger guns.
“Not a problem. With me around, anything is
paw-sible!” The officer’s smile grew extremely pained, which was always the sign of a good pun. Before she could excuse herself however, Grim’s voice turned serious. “By the way… think you can lend ol’ Grim a couple sets of handcuffs?”
It was hard to say that the years of chasing criminals and crime scenes wasn’t paying off, as Grim’s experience was leading to some quick take downs. He had started off with four spare sets of handcuffs from the officers, and gained two more along the way, and within thirty minutes was down to one set. Of course, stopping constantly to assist officers and civilians alike - as well as just plain stopping the property damage of one particularly angry woman who seemed to either have a grudge against convenience stores or was particularly hangry - didn’t bring Grim any closer to the goal.
All this chaos at once meant it was planned, and a plan means there was a planner. Hopefully getting to them would stop this, but so far Grim wasn’t having much luck with having to bounce from incident to incident. The most he had gotten so far was a garbled rambling of being set free, and another man roaring about how the torture would be stopping either way today. The ankle cuffs were honestly more of an indication than anything, especially since Grim didn’t exactly have time to interrogate deeply before having to bolt off to help the next person.
It was actually on the way to the next beeping alarm from a crow drone that Grim was rudely upended mid-run across a rooftop, ending up ass over teakettle and skidding along the floor before rolling to his hands and feet.
“Hah! I found him! I found him!” The man crowing before Grim was a barely more put together version of the first person who accosted him that night. Morning. Whatever. This man instead of a jetpack had long feathers growing from his arms, an actually attractive sandy brown color with dark tips, which flapped to keep him afloat. However the coloration was the only thing appealing about him, as otherwise he had long talons, an unnaturally long hunched neck, and his words were nasally due to the hooked beak emerging from his face.
“A vulture, right?” Grim ventured as he straightened out to stand fully on his feet, voice relaxed even as he began to gather what shadows he could between the open space and rising sun. The sharp, beady eyes of the animal hybrid were focused intently upon him, to which the shadowmancer merely gestured to his own neck. “The neck gave it away. Very distinct curve. Don’t you know carrions don’t hunt live prey? I know I’m an old dog but I’ve still got some bite.”
“That can be fixed.” A large hand grabbed the edge of the building, the material crumbling beneath a meaty paw and painted nails as they pulled themself over. It was an extremely large woman with blonde hair and about three, maybe four times the width of Grim himself, all rolling muscle and long blonde hair. Naturally, Grim whistled.
“Well, excuse me for panting! Ain’t that a lucky son of a bitch?” The son of a bitch in question was held almost like a doll in the woman’s hand, a sullen looking young man who as soon as he was set down ignited in flames.
See,
he managed to keep his clothes from igniting - why did the metal dude have to be naked?
“What a charmer,” The woman rumbled, and if there was sarcasm heavy in her voice Grim did what he did best and completely ignored it.
“Sorry, was I being too
fur-miliar? I thought I was responding appropriately to being
hounded.”
“Ugh, can we just get him already?!” The vulture man screeched, diving forward. Thankfully vultures weren’t exactly known for their speed, and with a quick upwards thrust of Grim’s arm the shadows coalescing around his feet shot up in the shape of a huge fist that slammed into the vulture’s belly and sent him reeling.
Or should he say
flying?
“Can’t we paws a moment to talk about-” Fire rolled over Grim and the creation, shrinking it even as Grim went to retreat. Most of the roof was open, with only an industrial cooling unit and a door to the stairs atop it. Cheap bastards, what kind of building only has one cooling unit? Still, it was there that Grim retreated to to regroup - only for the flames to disappear as suddenly the blonde hulk was stop him, slamming a fist into Grim’s chest. It was like being hit by a car - which he was unfortunately familiar with - and something cracked as he was thrown into the unit he was counting on as his salvation, which dented around him.
This … was not good.
“Ah, playing ruff with me?” Grim coughed, mustering up a laugh. The shadows beneath him darkened as he prepared to slip away, taking the moment given to him - the woman was standing back after the punch rather than following up, and the pyromancer was still on fire but also backed off. It was strange but better not to look a gift horse in the-
A projectile pounded into Grim’s chest, making him choke and double over as it combined with the earlier hit. Hunched over, the gleam of the projectile sticking from his chest was obvious. A tranquilizer dart.
And not shot from either of them.
“Was he hit?”
Yes, yes he was. Of course, the problem with being hit was he was shot in the chest - where his padding was thickest, for reasons obvious only to himself. It hadn’t quite penetrated. Which meant he had a moment. Grim went still, gathering his energy as he heard the large woman approaching. He waited, patiently, until her equally large shadow stretched out behind her - and then fell backwards into the shadows at his back.
“Fuck!” Grim emerged from the stretch of shadows behind the gargantuan woman in a leap, trusting the thick padding of his costume to take the brunt of fiery damage as he tackled the stick-like figure covered in flames. They both went down, and without being able to use his shadows, Grim trusted the instinct that said this man had very little hand to hand combat. In a display that showed Grim’s speed one hand grabbed the other man’s as he went to raise it, bending his fingers backwards painfully so the man cried out, while Grim’s other hand grabbed his face to slam the back of his head into the roof. The flames went out. Grim rolled away just as another shot would’ve hit his back - instead catching the pyromancer in the chest.
Hah. Karma.
A gleam on a nearby rooftop caught Grim’s attention, likely where the sniper was, but that was the only moment he had before Miss Amazon was upon him. With the fire out Grim threw his arm out, slugging the woman across the face with another shadow fist. It barely moved her, but the more important aspect was that it wrapped around her face to begin suffocating her just as he had with the first fight of the night. Of course, that left her hands still free which was evidenced by her reaching for Grim’s much smaller body.
So he grabbed onto the pyromancer’s arm and yanked it over, the woman’s arm wrapping around it as she yanked her comrade just to slam him into the ground where Grim was a moment ago. Then she made a muffled yelp as the first tranquilizer Grim was shot with thrust into the back of her leg, before Grim was moving once more.
The gleam of the sniper kept glinting in the distance as Grim rapid fire shadowstepped across the roofs, closing in with each motion. It was obvious the sniper was trying to get a hold of him, but Grim was quick and sneaky. They were too slow, and in a moment Grim was bursting from the sniper’s shadow with a raised fist-
A pain dug into both of Grim’s shoulders before he was unceremoniously yanked off his feet and away from the sniper. Just like that he lost his main source of power too, struggling in the air against the talons digging through his costume into skin.
“I really think you’re hounding the wrong guy!” Grim tried to laugh, but it was breathless as he twisted. The shadowmancer managed to reach out and grab onto one of the bruised vulture man’s stick-like talons on his left shoulder. It was a strong grip, and he had to use both hands to just grab one talon to twist painfully around - for the both of them. But the vulture man still shrieked and yanked the rest of his foot away, ripping away jacket and shirt and flesh as Grim nearly roared. He was struggling to hold onto Grim by the one talon on his other arm, and at this point little tendrils of shadows were wiggling out from under Grim’s mask to reach for the vulture even as his hands went for the other foot.
Then they both spun as a loud
crack sounded out, the force nearly ragdolling Grim even as he screamed. In the ripped flesh of his shoulder, a tranquilizer dart was now protruding from the bloody mess.
“I’m fucking trying to fly here!” The vulture man shrieked, struggling to right them out. It was a lost cause and they crashed to the roof. Immediately Grim threw himself away, to the nearest shadow - the vulture’s own - to shadowstep away. In his disorientated and mad haste he ended up emerging halfway down the building, falling a few feet before hitting the railing of the fire escape.
“Fuck, fuck.” Grim hissed weakly, yanking himself over the railing and falling on the other side. On his back now, Grim ripped the tranquilizer out but he could already feel it taking effect - was this a fucking horse tranq or something?!
Gotta escape. Gotta go. Grim stumbled to the railing once more, peering over the edge to try and pick out the shadows below. It was harder, as the sun rose higher and higher - there was just a slice of shadows against the wall from the two buildings being so close, but it did leave a pool against the ground. He just had to remain conscious long enough to shadowstep away-
“There he is! Get him, get him! The masked one all in black!” The vulture was crowing above him - heh - but more importantly, it seemed the four of these bozos weren’t the only back up they had. At his call a group of three people emerged on one side of the alley, two more on the other.
“Heh… I guess every dog has his day.” Grim laughed to himself, the voice modulator deepening Zoey’s voice before she finally slumped back and passed out.
