005 ʙᴏʀᴏɴ ⚛ VIDEO (backdated to 1/18)

[immuno]

[ It happens like it always does—she doesn’t realize where she’s going until she’s already there. For all that Lydia had been planning to depart the university and make her way back to the parking garage, her body had other ideas, feet carrying her far from her car and into an unfamiliar part of the city.

She only notices the wrong turn when she looks up from her phone. By now, she knows what it means, and her stomach drops. Call Scott, her instincts bid, but Scott’s not here. The hair on the back of her neck prickles and stands on end, and without Scott to help, she creeps around the corner of the building, phone securely in one hand, wary of what she’ll find.

The burns on Dean Winchester’s corpse are still smoldering. This was recent. But the worst part isn’t the fact that he’s charred beyond all recognition: it’s the half of his head that’s been removed. Lydia drops her phone, and her hands fly to her mouth to muffle a curdled scream. ]

[ Another lonely night that Simon’s wandering Heropa alone. Normally he stays safe, stays toward the inner city, but he really just doesn’t want any company. Not right now. Or so he thinks; screaming and the very pungent odor of burnt flesh somewhere in the distance draw his attention. Curiosity overrides self-preservation, and Simon finds himself approaching with a strange calmness. He processes the sight—a charred body, male, jagged edges at the top of his skull—and decides it’s too different to be Lunatic’s work.

Not that it makes the scene less sickening. ] Oh, fuck.

[Here, he turns to the lady and has a million questions but tries to go for the important ones.] Hey, are you all right? Did you—did you see who did this, or…?

No.

[ Eyes wide, unerringly fixed on the body in front of her, Lydia shakes her head. She wishes she had. If she’d been a little sooner, maybe—

Maybe she just would have been another body. After a transfixed moment of silence, she turns her attention up to the newcomer, tilting her head at him. Something occurs to her and she crouches, grabbing her phone: this is obviously the work of a metahuman, and given that... ] But someone else might recognize it.

All right. [ His mouth’s gone dry, and he swallows to get a lump out of his throat. But he nods as he sees the girl pick up her phone. He, too, whips out his own phone to use the distress signal app that he’d downloaded from Barnaby last month. ]

[ Lydia composes herself and turns the video function on her phone, broadcasting her own face for a moment, body well off-screen. ]

We have a problem. If you’re squeamish, now would be a good time to stop watching.

[ Tapping the screen, she flips the camera, and instead of her face, the video captures an image of Dean’s body. ]

I don’t think I have to be the one to point out that an imPort did this.

[ Which means bad news bears for all of them: imPort crime has a way of lashing back to make all of them look bad. ]

[ Simon’s voice from off-screen adds, ] It doesn’t look like Lunatic’s work, not from what I’ve heard. Things don’t quite match up, and. I think. I think the victim’s head is… empty.

Comments

voice

[askedtobe]

[ Oh. This is bad. Which is quite possibly the understatement of multiple centuries, and Peter has no idea what he's supposed to do. It's possible that he could use this opportunity, this very second, to warn everyone about Sylar but what would he even say? He doesn't know what Sylar can do and sending everyone after a man that could possibly shapeshift is an incredibly bad idea.

But not warning everyone? Means it'll be his fault if someone else falls to the same fate. And it'll still be his fault if they die because he told people to hunt him down.

The fact remains that he knows things and he doesn't know what to do about it, which is exactly why his shock is better left hidden, instead letting his nerves say something else through his tone. ] Where'd you find him?

voice

[immuno]

Near Heropa. It's just some parking lot, I ... Why would anyone even be out here?

[ But even as she babbles absently, trying to understand, she posts a text with the lot's nearest cross-streets. ]

voice

[askedtobe]

[ Aaaand consider that the first place Peter's going to begin looking. ]

I don't know, could be any reason. They could've dumped the body there for anyone to find it.

VIDEO.

[selfimage]

[ this isn't something that he didn't expect. he expected a lot of things with Lydia, and he doesn't look particularly perturbed or surprised or ill for that matter. between Lunatic, Osborn and drug rings, this is the last thing that imPorts needed on their record during times of high tension.

but first— ]

Lydia ...

You don't see anyone around you, do you? Not just someone, but remnants of when someone was last there.

[ let him make sure that whoever did this isn't in the area. ]

VIDEO.

[immuno]

I don't … I'm not sure.

[ Admitting it drags her, in some ways, out of her haze. She blinks hard, looks up at Simon off-screen for either confirmation or denial. Her brow furrows. ]

I didn't see anyone. [ Deliberate wording, as that certainly doesn't mean it's a sure thing that no one was there. It's totally possible, especially given the absent haze she was in as she blindly wandered here. ]

VIDEO.

[somethinghidden]

I—know I'm not Lydia. But I'm on scene as well, and there's a charred body. The top of its head looks cut open instead of a burnt round skull.

[selfequipped]

[She hates this she hates this she hates this she hates this.]

Are there any traces left on the scene? [She steadies her voice.] Footprints, or ... anything removed from the body. [The body.

Who is that?]

[immuno]

You mean like a brain?

[ Yes. One might say something was removed. Sry for the snapping, Kate. This is up there on "most disturbing deaths Lydia Martin has witnessed," which was a highly competitive list to begin with. ]

[somethinghidden]

[ Despite everything, Simon finds himself strangely calm when replying. ]

There are footprints... In the soot and ash. Uh, there's also a. Small fire extinguisher.

voice;

[sonhobbler]

[Now that Stilinski knows why Lydia finds bodies this isn't as shocking, but he still wishes she could turn that ability off. Probably not as badly as she wishes she could.]

Where are you?

voice;

[somethinghidden]

This is... an empty car park on the outskirts of Heropa.

[ As Lydia had for Peter, Simon sends a text of the nearest intersections. ]

[voice]

[fledgeling]

...Why the brain? I mean, I know you don't know. But that seems extra-weird.

Though - how do you know it's an imPort?

[voice]

[somethinghidden]

It could be part of their M.O., whoever it was. I've heard of Lunatic, a vigilante imPort who attacks those who have killed others, even if done in self defense or to save the lives of others. But this, the whole... head cut open and brain missing... thing. I've never heard of anything like it.

[ A beat.

Simon feels conflicted—is it right, or fair, to assume the perpetrator is an imPort just because it looks like someone with superpowers did it? No, that seems... wrong. And discriminatory. But he comes from a world without powers or special abilities, and whatever powers he has are weaknesses rather than strengths. So chances are he's more likely to blame those who do have power. Or greater powers than he has, at any rate.

This is the first he's ever been posed with this sort of dilemma. ] You know, I don't know for sure... that it's an imPort, really. No, I don't have the sorts of powers to confirm who the victim is or who did it. And maybe it's wrong, but... it seemed like a natural conclusion.

video.

[ex_question191]

Oh my god, Lydia.

[ stiles hates it when this happens to her. he hates that it's still happening here. and a part of him feels guilty that he's not the one finding the bodies for her. he wishes she'd called him instead of splashing this across the whole network, like she didn't already get enough weird attention. ]

You need me to come pick you up?

video.

[immuno]

[ She nods vigorously, pressing her lips together. With Stiles, it's hard not to let it show how affected she is: she's used to letting him see. A moment later, she wrestles her vulnerability down far enough to trust herself to speak: ] Yeah. We're close to Heropa, I can send you cross streets. [ And she does. ] I don't know what happened.

VOICE.

[enabeled]

[ Gideon isn't squeamish -- no, not particularly, but there are certain things that hit home for him in an unpleasant way. It's not the dead man himself that bothers him, not the body, the burns, but what makes Gideon's breathing stop for just long enough that he is extra aware of his heartbeat, what makes his palms feel suddenly cold... is that comment at the end, I think the victim's head is empty.

Empty how? Empty why? Where did the brains go? Did someone-- ]

Not looking for a cannibal as the culprit, are you?

VOICE.

[immuno]

Can you think of another reason someone would take their victim's brain?

[ By the time Gideon rolls around, she's composed herself enough to get snappy about it. Disgust replaces fear and vulnerability. ]

[theoryandcalculation]

[Oh, that looks bad. Rei actually has to fight back queasiness for a moment.]

How do you know it was an import? There are... a lot of natives who seem to want us dead.

[Gasoline and a match could do that in minutes.]

[immuno]

It seemed to be the reasonable assumption, given that there's no sign of an accelerant or anything to start the fire.

[altercate]

[ after creeping on every other convo-- ]

Lydia. [ pause, what does he even say? ] I'll see you both when you get home.

[ meaning he will be waiting on top of the door. there's a dog joke kicking around here, but. ]

The two of you should get away from there.

[immuno]

Because whoever did it could still be around. I know. But ... I just wanna wait for the police to get here.

audio.

[rocketsmodernlife]

[ okay, so other people have asked how they know an imPort did it, but ]

How do you know there's no accelerant? Why would that come back to the rest of us anyway - not like we all gotta be friends or anything.

audio.

[immuno]

Because I'm not an idiot, and I know what to look for. [ With a dead body still in front of her, it's hard to keep in perspective that not everyone knows Lydia Martin has an IQ of 170 or that she reads college STEM textbooks for fun. ] Do you have any other dumb questions you'd like to ask?

action;

[attainment]

[With no official functions to keep him occupied this evening, Barnaby is actually on patrol when he receives the distress signal. Naturally, his first assumption is Lunatic has struck again, but a quick check over anything new on the network suggests otherwise. Still, the current situation is just as serious -- if not more so, given what he hopes isn't the calling card of a new serial killer -- and he immediately starts closing in on the signal's source.

When he arrives, he surveys the crime scene for a moment to make sure the situation hadn't changed while he was en route. Once he determines no immediate threat, he seeks Simon out. Hopefully he doesn't mind that Barnaby skips the pleasantries and gets straight to the point.]

You sent the distress signal, right? I'm already aware of what happened thanks to the network, but have there been any new developments?

action;

[somethinghidden]

[ Between Lydia having called the cops, and Kate and Loki's arrival, Simon decided it best to head out. Too many cooks in the kitchen and all. While he'd managed to remain relatively level at the scene, it's only after he leaves that he seems really rattled, anxious, stressed. It may not have been safe to leave on his own, but he didn't want to be stuck in all the commotion.

At first, he's startled by Barnaby's arrival; then, he's relieved. It's urgent enough business, so he doesn't even notice when Barnaby wants the bottom of it. ]

Yeah, I did—that was me who sent it. So far as I know, the police are mobilising, and Kate and Loki went to see it themselves. [ He's a little breathless, probably from the stress. ] The victim is an imPort, his... head was cut open, the brain removed, and—I don't know much more than that. Maybe you could ask the others about whatever they got.