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Murder Moves to Suprenum

Chapter 2

By Draconicon

Mato woke up the next morning pleasantly stretched and slightly sore, but with none of the usual throbbing that came with being alone for a night. The crow stretched his legs, almost kicking the covers off in the process, and brought his arms out from under his pillow, resting them on his chest as he stared up at the ceiling.

"...7:46," he said before turning to look at the clock on the nightstand. "7:52. Close enough."

Shaking his head, he rolled his legs off to the side, talons touching the floor as he looked at the wall. He felt a yawn coming up and squelched it, blinking through the last bits of sleep that refused to entirely go away. Knowing that if he continued to sit on the bed that he'd be tempted to fall back into the mattress, he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to his oversized suitcase.

It was a new day, and more importantly, his second technical day in Suprenum. If he wanted to keep this apartment - or have the money for a better one - then he needed to get a job, and fast. The visa from Bonifacio Industries brought him here, but he still needed to register at city hall to get his permits for a job. Suprenum allowed supers - hell, did more for them than anywhere else in the world - but they were still citizens and still had to go through the proper channels.

He pulled out a fresh shirt and pants, laying them out on the bed. They were a little fancier than he usually liked to wear, but if he was going to make a trip through town, he might as well look good. Or at least, as good as a crow from out of town and without much to his name could.

He told himself that would change soon. He told himself that he would be a hero, soon enough, and everyone would know him. His fortunes were on the verge of turning around.

Once he made himself believe it, he went to the bathroom. A shower first, and then he'd head out.

"Leaving?" Codrin asked.

The pit bull had been waiting just outside the lobby elevator, head half-buried in an access panel at the lower side, and the crow hadn't seen him before he spoke. Pushing the heart attack back down, Mato nodded.

"I need to get myself registered."

"Mmph. Paperwork good."

"I guess. But boring."

"Boring good. Lively painful. Gets people hurt."

"Heh. Then why are you here?"

"Better than alternative."

"Too lively where you came from?"

"Could say that." The pit bull building manager pushed himself out of the access panel, looking up at the crow. "Old curse. Know the one?"

"I believe so. 'May you live in interesting times'?"

"Mm. Interesting times. Too interesting. But, need interesting people to handle interesting times. Maybe you're interesting?"

"I would like to think so."

"Will find out." The pit bull dragged himself back into the wall, banging on something on the other side. "Good luck."

Mato hoped charm would suffice. He was reasonably sure he could pull that off. Luck had never been much of a friend.

Giving the pit bull a wave that he was all but sure the older man couldn't see, he walked through the lobby and out the front door. The Fifth Bonifacio with all thirty floors loomed high over the street, casting a shadow that ran across the building on the other side of the street and past it in the early morning, and he shook his head as he got his bearings. From what he remembered of the map, City Hall was north and then west of his current position.

He needed a phone. He'd have to hope that he could pick one up for cheap, soon, if only for GPS.

The crow set off. The early morning hour meant that there weren't many pedestrians out just yet and the all-night partiers had long since gone back to bed. He felt alone out on the sidewalk, but that was fine. He liked the feeling; it made him think about how it would feel when he had a real super-job and could go out on patrol.

Despite himself, Mato smiled. His beak turned up at the back corners as he imagined hitting the streets and the rooftops, looking down at the world below and seeing where things were going wrong, where people stepped over the line, and making corrections.

It was a good thought. It kept him smiling for the long walk towards the city center.

It took him thirty minutes to get there, but twenty minutes to realize that he hadn't seen any superheroes yet, the thought coming to him as he waited at a crosswalk for the light to change. He blinked, looking around as if he would find one just waiting down the street, only to see nothing but other people. Other, sadly normal people at that, from the raccoon waiting with him to cross the street to the cheetah jogging in the cool morning down the road.

"...Where are all of the -"

The earth shook beneath his feet, the concrete rolling upward and then to his left in a wave of motion. The crow shifted his balance on instinct, staying on his feet, while the cheetah was bowled over completely. At his side, the raccoon reached out with a practiced move to seize the light pole at their side, riding it out without ever looking up from his phone. Mato stared down, shaking his head in shock.

"What...was that?"

"Probably a fight on the subway," the raccoon said, shrugging. "Want me to check?"

"...If you don't mind."

The raccoon flicked his thumb along his phone, pulling up an app. It briefly displayed the Suprenum city logo, complete with the tag-line of 'City of Heroes,' before fading into a more standard news display. He leaned over to see a new announcement popping up, showing a five-second clip of a mare and a mole duking it out on the roof of a train.

"Yep. Subway fight," the raccoon said. "Annnnd that's the Coastal Line out of commission for at least three hours."

"Only three?"

"They've got a lot of practice, and Rebar fixes the tunnels pretty quick these days," the raccoon said, tapping out of the app. "You new?"

Mato nodded.

"Get the Suprenum Civil Announcements app as soon as you can. Something goes wrong every day in Suprenum, and supers are usually the reason it happens."

"I'm sure that they solve as any problems as they cause."

"Even if that's true, that'd just make it so there's no difference between them being there and not being there."

He would have argued that, but the light changed and they had to cross the street, and the raccoon was going a different direction than him. The crow let it go, shaking his head as he put his hands in his pockets and continued on.

He's wrong, he thought. Supers can make things better. We can. People have always been annoyed at inconvenience. That's probably all it is.

Even so, Mato looked around, trying to find a super, a hero, something to remind him that he was in a city that proclaimed itself as the City of Heroes. He looked to the skies, half-hoping to see a super flying by as he had the day before, and saw nothing. He glanced at the rooftops, imagining that there might be some gadgeteer looming over the streets, but had no luck.

There was nobody, nothing. Only the average person could be seen wandering the sidewalks this early in the morning, and not many of them.

Shaking his head, the crow put it out of his mind, putting it down to nothing more than the problem of being out at the wrong time. Turning back to his self-assigned route, he continued walking toward City Hall.

#

The domed building sat on a raised bit of ground in the middle of a circular plaza, which itself was filled with eight fountains at the points of the compass. Even this early in the morning, the humidity was getting stronger by the second, and he rubbed his forehead free of the budding sweat droplets as he walked up the steps. City Hall, a structure of white stone and topped with a glass room, looked promising, even though there were several security guards at the front of it. More security than he had seen back home, at the very least.

One of them, an elephant, held up a hand as he approached. Mato stopped in his tracks.

"Something wrong?"

"Point of visit?" the elephant asked.

"I am here to register as a super."

"Papers?"

"Did - I thought I would give them to the clerk inside."

The elephant shook his head. The security guard loomed a good foot and a half taller than him, looked down through dark sunglasses, giving more the appearance of some sort of government agent than anything else. Mato glanced down at the large B stitched in gold thread in the elephant's shirt and had a split second to wonder what it meant before the elephant repeated his 'request.'

"Papers?"

"Are you saying I can't go in without showing you them?"

"Security procedures. Supers aren't allowed in a building without knowing what they can do."

"I can -"

"Papers."

Some things never changed, he supposed. He held up one hand while turning to reach for his pocket with the other. The elephant huffed through his trunk, and the crow made sure to move a little slower in response. Once he plucked the papers and his Bonifacio visa from his pocket, the elephant finally approached, taking it from him and skimming it.

Mato didn't say anything. He'd learned a long time ago that when someone dressed like that demanded his paperwork, he needed to give it and shut the hell up. Indignation over the process helped no-one, no matter how much he would have preferred to be greeted more nicely than this. He was supposed to be in the City of Heroes, in Suprenum, a place that wanted people like him, for crying out loud. And here they were treating him like one more potential criminal, instead.

The elephant must have read the papers three times before finally folding them up and giving them back. He nodded at the door.

"First receptionist on the left. Do your business, super."

"Thank you," he said, biting off everything else he wanted to say.

"And no funny business. The last time a villain tried something, they learned the hard way how well-protected it is here. Bonifacio Industries knows how to take care of its allies."

Ah. Then the B was for Bonifacio, then. He would have thought that the elephant would have been a little more friendly to someone that had a Bonifacio visa, but perhaps he was hoping for too much.

Mato reminded himself that he was a foreigner here. Whatever visa he had, whatever powers he had, that would probably come first for a long time. Perhaps forever, depending on the locals.

Shaking his head and hoping he was wrong, he stepped inside. The City Hall lobby was mostly empty at this hour of the morning, though there were some people queueing for the security checkpoint further in that probably led to the official offices further back. He ignored them, turning immediately to the clerk that the security guard had mentioned. A corgi female looked up from her computer as he walked over, and she gave him one look-over before shaking her head.

"If you're hoping for a civil or super job, I'm afraid you're out of luck."

Mato stiffened, blinking. She kept talking, turning back to the computer with an exhausted sigh.

"I'm sorry, but there are no super jobs, nor any civil jobs that are waiting to be filled by someone with supernatural, super-human, or other abilities at the moment. There are several positions open across the city that will employ you in a job that may or may not allow you to utilize your powers for the sake of their company or charity, but we don't handle that here, I'm afraid. All I can do is register you."

"...I'm sorry. What...what did you say?" the crow asked.

"There are no super jobs available, nor any on the civil level that would allow you to use your powers." She sounded tired, he thought in a disconnected sort of way. How many times had she had to tell someone this. "You'll have to go somewhere else."

"...I...I'm sorry, but I have a Bonifacio visa -"

"So does everyone else."

"But I came here -"

"So did everyone else."

"I - you - there must be something. I have - I have powers. I can do good things."

"Sir. I'm afraid I can only repeat what I've already said. There is nothing here. We have already filled up on super-powered individuals on the civil and the law-enforcement level. All I can do is register you so that you can continue your search legally." The corgi shook her head. "If you have your paperwork?"

Handing them over in a gesture more mechanical than natural, he tried to keep his shattering sense of self from completely collapsing. He knew - or at least, he'd thought he'd known - that a job wasn't guaranteed, but he had thought that Suprenum wouldn't shut him out so fast. This was the City of Heroes. How could - how could they just run out of space for a hero? How could they run out of slots?

There weren't that many of them, were there? There couldn't be that many supers flocking here from all across the planet, right? Or was there that many that were clamoring for jobs, or -

He was running in mental circles, and his hand was shaking. The clerk nodded at a nearby chair, the closest to sympathy and genuine emotion rather than the pre-programmed statements that she seemed to be willing to deliver, and he sat down before his legs could completely give out.

The world was crashing down around him, and with it, all the dreams of making it big. He felt like an idiot. For all that he'd tried to prepare himself for disappointment, that dreamer in him had still imagined Suprenum to be the place where he'd solve all his problems, and everything would be right with the world again. It was supposed to be the place where nothing was wrong, where he'd be able to show off what he could do, where everything stopped being so normal and mundane and oppressive. It was supposed to be the City of Heroes, where people like him could be super.

And yet, at the very first place he went, he was told 'no chance.'

No...no, she said, none here. That doesn't mean that there aren't other places hiring. I just...I just have to find them.

That little spark was the only hope he had, and despite knowing that hanging his hopes on that was a bad, bad, bad idea, he did it anyway. It was the only thing keeping him from breaking down.

"And, you're registered."

He stood up and collected his papers as she offered them. The corgi shook her head.

"I am sorry. Coming this far..." She sighed. "If it means anything, you're not the only one that tried."

"I..."

"Good luck."

He wasn't sure if the lack of one of those official-fake smiles was a good thing or a bad thing. It certainly didn't help him right then. Mato nodded mechanically and turned on his heel, walking back out of City Hall. The security guards at the front watched him leave with stony stares while he kept his eyes down on the steps. His brain just didn't want to work; he couldn't think, and he couldn't plan. He just walked.

Eventually, he wound up in a cafe, and he only 'woke up' to the world around him again because of an explosion outside. Mato ducked with all the other customers, but unlike the rest of them, he didn't have a phone to check to figure out what had just happened. The crow crawled around one of the fallen tables in the cafe, leaning in to tap a fox on the shoulder.

"What just happened?"

"Checking now...ah. Bank robbery down the street. Looks like a gang of supers."

"You are...remarkably calm about this."

"Eh, it happens every week or so. One of the official supers will be along to take care of it soon enough, and these thieves don't bother you if you don't get in the way," the fox said, standing up and picking up his table. "Waiter, can I get a replacement drink?"

And just like that, the cafe was immediately returning to normal. Considering the explosion had been just over half a block away, Mato was shocked that they could just forget about it and get back to what they were doing. Even in a place like this with all the supers around, he expected some fear, but nobody seemed to care. They were just wanting to be served again, trusting someone else with their fate.

If this had been anywhere else, he would have seen screaming, running into the streets, frantic calls to the police, and more. Here, it was just another Tuesday.

Shaking his head, he pulled himself to his feet and ran out the door. Glancing down the street, he saw the hole blown in the front of a bank, and through it ran six red wolves, each one with a slight burning fuse on the back of their heads. They must have been the ones that set off the explosion. In hindsight, rather obvious, he supposed.

He was just about to step in - both out of duty and out of the faint hope that it might earn him a little recognition - when the wind picked up. The crow stepped back against the buildings as a gust of wind blew down the street, all but blowing out the fuses on the heads of the red wolves. They stopped in their tracks, whipping their heads around, their muzzles moving too quietly for him to hear from a distance.

Suddenly, one of the red wolves stiffened, their eyes going wide. They tried to say something, probably a warning, but it was too late; the others were looking somewhere else, and even Mato could tell that the stiff one had been silenced. The red wolf's hands moved down, stiff but quick, and pulled the canine's belt free, wrapping it around his wrists with a practiced motion. The wolf stumbled back, his mouth hanging open as the belt was knotted tight, and as he fell over, arms tied behind his back, he shouted.

"Mirage! It's fucking Mirage!"

Mirage. Mato didn't know that name, but the other wolves clearly did. They broke out of their cluster almost instantly, but one of them had already stiffened, falling over. He screamed, only to break off almost instantly, his mouth frozen open as his arms moved behind his back, gripping a pipe on the ground.

The other thieves were desperately trying to pull the first victim off the ground as the second shivered, exhaling a plume of steam from his nose. As the thief fell to the ground, all but unconscious, the steam manifested into a shape that was tall and slender, almost too slender to belief, with a ruff of fur around the neck that looked almost like a mane. The crow stared with widening eyes as the steam shimmered into a solid form, hissing it out from beneath thick dark boots.

"Criminals will face justice," the maned wolf - Mirage - said. "I suggest that you stand down."

The four still standing looked back and forth. One started to step back -

"If you run, I will catch you."

How is he doing that? Mato wondered. How did he control them?

He looked like steam, at first, but was it steam, or was it just the air heated up? Or was it something else? He'd never heard of Mirage before, but this was a display and a half. The maned wolf had terrified the criminals into compliance, and his demeanor, though chilly, was something to marvel at. They were warned, and if they fought back...

Well, Mato would not feel sorry for them.

One of the fuse-heads leaped forward, throwing a punch at the hero. Mirage sagged back from it, only for his arm to turn soft and misty at the point of impact. The red wolf passed through him and Mirage turned, misting out -

It still hurt him, Mato thought. He didn't change fast enough. He still got part of the hit.

But before the maned wolf could turn to steam again, the street exploded with smog and heat. Mato grabbed hold of the nearby storefront, holding onto it for dear life as the air turned all but unbreathable. The crow coughed, covering his beak as he desperately searched for the source of the smog.

It emerged from the darker clouds a moment later. A kangaroo female, dressed in a leather vest that barely hid her chest and a pair of tight shorts with chains hanging off either hip, marched right up to the hero. She snorted, thick gouts of black smog pushing out of her nostrils as she lifted a fist beneath his nose.

"Get your mitts off my boys," she growled.

"They were breaking the law, Smokestack," Mirage said, looking down his muzzle as he towered over her. "There is no -"

"Ya just try and pull that high and mighty bullshit with me right now. I ain't here to debate. I'm here to keep ya from fucking them over any more than they already are."

"I was restraining them. All they have to do -"

"They ain't gotta do nothing. Get outta here, boys." The kangaroo smirked. "Mama's got it handled from here."

Being around other supers, Mato had learned the difference between those that talked with arrogance, those that talked with conviction, and those that talked real. Most people with a power just talked with the arrogance that came with having something that made you different from the people around you. He'd heard conviction in Mirage's voice, someone that believed in the duty of chasing down criminals and protecting everyone else.

But when the kangaroo talked? When he heard her say, 'Mama's got it handled'? He heard something real there.

The red wolves scattered, taking their friends with them, and Mirage tried to shift around the kangaroo. As soon as he started turning to mist, though, Smokestack snorted, smoke pouring from her ears, nose, and mouth, great gray gouts of it that burned and sizzled with sparks within. The maned wolf was pushed back, the strings of air that he created snapped and forced out of shape and position.

"Ain't getting by me that easy."

Mirage shook his head, those eerily slender arms lifting in a practiced fighting stance. Smokestack grinned, pulling her hands up like a boxer.

As he watched, Mato couldn't help but feel suddenly small, like he had dropped into a world that was so much bigger than he had imagined. A man that could turn to air and control the bodies of his opponents, and a woman that created smoke and stood in his way. And these were just the first supers that he'd seen.

He had a long way to go if he was going to make people notice him as much as they noticed them.

The crow was so interested in seeing where the fight went that he didn't notice the screaming sirens coming from behind. Smokestack, however, did. She cocked her head slightly, smirked, and shook her head.

"I'd be up for fighting you, Mirage, but I ain't taking on everyone."

"You should surrender. Give all this up."

"Kid, that's the last thing I'm ever gonna do."

Mirage lunged for her, but too late. The explosion of smoke flattened him, and even from several buildings down, it knocked Mato back a step. The buildings closest to her were smeared with black dust, and the windows of some were so overheated that they popped in their windows.

By the time that the cops came, she was gone. Mato barely had a chance to register her disappearance before Mirage was walking by, muttering quick questions to anyone that happened to be knocked over. The crow tried to ask a question in return -

"Are you alright?" Mirage asked.

"What?"

"Are you alright? Are you unharmed?"

"Well, yes, but -"

And the maned wolf was gone, continuing down the line of other civilians that Mato hadn't even realized were there. Those that the maned wolf deemed injured were marked, somehow, while those that were just dazed were passed on.

It took him a moment to realize that the hero had only seen him as one more person in the crowd, one more civilian that would have needed protecting. Mato shook his head; he had a long way to go.

One police interview and three hours of job searching later, Mato found himself at his wits' end. Four different offices - two legal, one accounting, and one civil service - had all turned him down. Going to the fire department, and then the police department, had also gotten him shot down as soon as he mentioned that he had powers that he'd like to use on the job. No reason why, no explanation, just an instant nod to the exit and a reminder that he wasn't to be doing that while on the job.

To say that it was disheartening was to put it mildly. To say that he was crushed was closer to the mark. He had thought, hoped, was sure that he was going to get something. Surely, someone in the city would have been pleased to hire someone that could clone themselves. Even if it was purely on the economic level of paying one person to do the job of five or more, that was better than the alternative, right?

Except, nobody seemed willing. The power just turned everyone off. Sure, some had looked regretful - the accountant in particular had seemed all but crushed - but nobody was willing to take whatever risk that power represented.

And so, he wandered. Eventually, he wound up on the west side of the city, standing before a taller office building that had its own plaza around it, and each building in the plaza was marked with the same B that the elephant guards at City Hall had sported. He looked up at the main tower, reading the 'B. I.' that glittered in gold with silver borders on it.

"...Bonifacio Industries..."

It was his last hope, he supposed. If the man that had written out his visa wouldn't hire him, he didn't know what he'd do. The crow gathered what little bit of self-respect he had and marched across the plaza and through the front doors. He got in line behind the greeting clerk, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

When he eventually reached the front of the line, the raccoon clerk looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"I...want to talk to Mr. Bonifacio."

"I'm sorry. Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

"Then I'm afraid that you'll have to -"

"I need to see him."

"So do half the people of power in this city, sir. I'm afraid you're going to have to make an appointment."

"I need -"

"I'm sorry, sir, but everyone needs to see him. Next, please."

Someone tried to push past him, but Mato had had enough. The crow squeezed down on the countertop as he pushed, his sense of self - something angry, something hot, tired, and altogether done with the bullshit that seemed to surround everything that he needed to do just to make a living - splitting as he cloned himself. One, two, three, four, five, six of them popping out of him, stepping to the side and behind him. The crowd at his back pulled away as his power was displayed, and they stood like bodyguards behind him. One started to speak for him, and he held up his hand, stopping it in its tracks.

"I need...to speak...to Mr. Bonifacio."

"..."

Click. A buzz from behind the desk.

"Excuse me, excuse me. Mr. Tatelli, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing on camera?"

"I believe so, Mr. Bonifacio."

"Ah, I thought so. Um, yes, yes. Do you - yes, you would have his file. Please pull it up."

"...Sir. Wouldn't it be better if you pulled it up?" the raccoon said, his eyes never leaving Mato's face.

It was almost surreal how calm the clerk was compared to the crowd. The latter were pulling back and yet trying to press in, some muttering about calling other supers, while the clerk just stood there, eyes narrowed, his hand on the button to talk to his boss.

"Oh, right, right. Yes. I am the head of the company, after all. Yes, probably beyond your - one second."

"He will be a moment, sir," the raccoon said.

"..."

"In the meantime, would you mind retracting your...clones?"

"...Sorry."

He breathed in, and as he did, he felt them collapsing back into him from all sides. It had been a stupid mistake to let that get to him, and now...

God, he needed to be better at this. It got the boss's attention, but in a good way? Who knew.

"Yes, yes, I see it now. Mr. Kiyoshi, is it?"

"...That's me," Mato said.

"Yes. I - um - yes. Let me see. Yes, yes, that would be - yes, I think we have a space for you. Come up and we'll talk. I think - yes, with that power - yes, that would be very helpful. If you are looking for a job?"

"Yes...god, yes."

"Splendid! Come up, and let's get a contract prepared."

"...I'll send him up, sir," the raccoon said.

Even as the raccoon hit the button for the elevator, Mato could hardly believe this was happening. It seemed impossible that his luck could shift, but if it had...if it genuinely had...

Bonifacio was the one that signed the visa. Maybe he remembers? Or...or...

It didn't matter. It was a job, and he'd take it. As long as he could keep using his powers, he'd take it, and be happy for it.

The End

Summary: A day of some rather crushing reality, as well as some cool supers that live in the city.

Tags: M/solo, No Sex, Crow, Pit Bull, Red Wolf, Maned Wolf, Kangaroo, Various Species, Supers, Superheroes, Super Villains, Steam, Air, Smoke, Cloning, Fighting, Series, Patreon, Suprenum, Disappointment,