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Post by Krakenbox on Sept 25, 2020 14:51:09 GMT -8
 As told by the Hunter, the husk of the vehicle had been moved to the precinct's evidence. The site itself was just outside the bounds of a neighbourhood dedicated to student housing, mostly for alumni and older attendees looking to rent a house. The 7/11 where she was filmed was a simple twelve minute walk. She had left the location of the party for an hour, filling up on gas and then travelling north, before doubling back and calling her mother. Three hours later she would be lit on fire. The charred grass and shriveled remains of the flower bed showed a ring where the frame had burned, ash and pieces of the vehicle were left where they were behind the yellow tape. The keys remained missing. The location of the party was provided, confirmed to be a sorority house, which was further in on the campus proper. Oren Kai Rose |
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Post by Kai Rose on Sept 26, 2020 13:56:09 GMT -8
There was no time like the present to pull evidence, and the evidence Kai Rose required as simply a mirror away. Head to where the car was burned, find a good window that had a straight view, and scroll back, back, back through time --
The Sculptor was more than familiar with this Royal dance of Darkling magic.
"All right. I need to find glass with a good view that we can spend some time safely watching to see what happened... you got anything you need to figure things out here?"
As she spoke of it, she was already looking, a trained investigator's eyes scanning about to find the right angle.
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242 
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Post by Oren on Sept 29, 2020 14:00:16 GMT -8
"Yeah, I mean, previews aren't scheduled until September. But for you? I can show a little something."
Oren took Williams' ID card, pressing its corners hard against his palms. It would bend, and he would twist it into something unrecognizable. He too, would twist and stretch. He would imagine hair just like hers. Eyes, just like hers. Lips, just like hers. Flesh burning, screams drawn and windows fogged with smoke and terror. Tragedy, at its finest, and he would bring her story to the stage. He would step between the pieces of twisted metal and imagined it whole. Soft seats in the place of open air. Oren? Who was Oren?
This was Reshanda Williams, moments before her untimely demise. And...action!
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Post by Krakenbox on Sept 29, 2020 19:35:16 GMT -8
Kai scores the immediate area, finding thumbnail chunks of a blown windshield, which wouldn't be too much help with such a small window to peer through, but maybe if she angled it properly? Across the road was a housing complex, each condo offering a patio with a view that was likely better than ground level, if she could manage to be subtle.
Knowing that a key detail was pulled from Williams' file indicating the crime connection with her father, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that there were other pitfalls, such as neighbourhood properly being swept for evidence, surveillance footage, or any details on communications records.
As the Mirrorskin pressed his hands against smooth, marble flesh, Kai overheard him mumbling snippets of lore from a hundred tales. The shifting pitch was at first completely disjointed, but as the Wyrd was spun, the voice of narration was beginning to converge.
Reshanda laughs, looking a little nervous as she tries the drops, eyes shimmering as she stretches her lid and flinches as the liquid spreads across the cornea. She passes her car keys back to the young man, about her age, maybe a little older, settling back as he drives, while she starts staring at her surroundings in awe. They chat idly as she floats her hand out the window, giggling as she swishes it against the rushing night. She calls him Jordan at one point. Looks Caucasian, red hair buzzed short underneath the Raiders cap, his expression getting ugly as he brings up her dad. Reshanda stiffens, immediately getting aggressive herself and Jordan starts pulling the car over under the barrage of insults. She reaches for the door, a look of shock as the lock clicks, and as she moves to pop it again, her head is slammed repeatedly into the window.
Screaming.
Cut short. Jordan looks panicked, grabbing at her mouth, and then the throat with bleeding flesh as she tries to angle herself to throttle him with her legs. A look of malice possesses his eyes, and he asks how dying feels with the drops. Reshanda gets the door open, but the tip of weight lets the other get the advantage, and he starts to shake her violently as her eyes popped. He bears down, and the final trash leaves blood on the edge of the car as her skull cracks, going limp. Jordan sniffs, wiping the sweat with a shoulder shrug as he pulls Reshanda forward in a hug, and drops the dead weight behind the seat, flipping her legs so she's out of sight.
He slips back into the front, panting, staring ahead to a dark street for a solid minute.
He then flees the vehicle, locking it behind him almost like a reflex as he bolts south, towards the neighbourhood, and rapidly lost to the night.
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Post by Kai Rose on Sept 29, 2020 19:48:54 GMT -8
"Umm," Kai whispered, "Maybe you shouldn't take on the face of the dead girl... I'll be back."
Quick and easy. A bit of Glamour to turn away the light, and she efficiently got to sussing out which condo was empty so she could climb on up. It didn't take long for the athlete to make her way to the right spot...
"Show me when Reshanda died..." she murmured to the glass, but the magic didn't come. A second repetition, though, and the scene played out before her...
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Sept 30, 2020 0:42:02 GMT -8
"Inviting her lets me see things more clearly. I saw her killer. He killed me."
He had been subjected to a euphoric experience, only to be thrashed. Threshed. Beaten. Battered. Broken. Abandoned. Reshanda sat on the ground, head in hands, fingers running through hair that would no longer grow. Closed eyes that would no longer open. Oh, she could cry. But she didn't have time for that. That was the tragedy. An abrupt end. A thunderclap. No time to mourn. No time to bleed. There was no soliloquy. It hurt to be silenced like this. He would grant her this before becoming more like current self, replacing dark skin for pale flesh. Dark eyes for emerald green. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. —Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Oren! Oren was back. Oh, it's been so long...
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Post by Krakenbox on Sept 30, 2020 16:01:16 GMT -8
The glass surface rippled, curtain closing as the image faded to night and cast a solid reflection of the lit streets. The car that matched the make and model on file was parked silently in the darkness, no street lamps on the other side of the road. A faded gold Toyota slowed alongside the ditch, lights cutting, and the plates having been removed. A figure with a grey hood flipped over a black snapback that had an obvious Deadpool logo on the front quickly cut through the dip with a gas cannister in each hand. They dump most of it inside, and small metallic bar is tossed into the backseat as an afterthought. They mess with what is likely a lighter, carefully holding it to the fabric of the vehicle and jumping back as the gas caught. The arsonist wastes no time sprinting back to the vehicle, peeling out and heading south as the vehicle was quickly consumed.
A blazing figure rolls out of the backseat, stumbling and then crawling towards the ditch when the flames don't subside.
Meanwhile, Oren collects himself. He doesn't see the hidden Wizened, but the flashing image of flames plays out from a distance from a patio on the third story, never to exist to those who cannot pierce Reality. Too far for details without the aid of the supernatural, but he can put two and two together that Mirror was being utilized by the other Summer.
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Post by Kai Rose on Oct 3, 2020 15:05:33 GMT -8
Kai gave a non-committal little 'mhnnh' at the Elemental's strange explanation of how his capabilities worked. As long as he didn't get caught on camera shifting his face, whatever gave him his kicks... other than that, she was already gone. The glass saw everything, and revealed things. The faded gold Toyota. No plates. Grey hood, Deadpool hat? All right. That was something to work with. Her teeth grit behind closed lips as she saw the vehicle start to burn...
...and the girl with it.
Once she was done, she climbed back down, found a good place to reappear, and rejoined Oren with a sigh.
"Looks like a two-can arson. I think someone called the guy. The girl was already in her parked car when the attacker showed, opened the door and it all happened... we're looking for the driver of a gold Toyota, no plates... the only thing of interest on them was a Deadpool hat? He rolled south."
She glanced in a southerly direction before taking the time to work the scene and ditch over with the trained eye of someone who knew at least a little about what they were doing in the realm of forensic science.
"Dunno if you know anyone in the underworld, but that kind of hat is pretty distinctive. Come to think of it, so are old gold Toyotas. That's a weird color."
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Oct 3, 2020 16:14:09 GMT -8
"Gold is precious. It's a sign of wealth. It adorned kings and clerics. This one is neither."
Oren saw something that the Wizened failed to mention. The man of his dream had red hair, cut short, and a Raiders cap.
"Is Deadpool a football team? The hat I saw had a guy with swords going through his head."
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Post by Kai Rose on Oct 3, 2020 16:30:05 GMT -8
Shit. More than one killer, maybe? Or perhaps she saw someone sent to finish the job?
"What'd you see in detail? Maybe I saw a cleaner..."
She kept on looking around, letting him talk as they walked and she scanned.
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Post by Krakenbox on Oct 4, 2020 16:28:36 GMT -8
As the two compare notes, Kai rolls the memory through the glass for Oren to visually weigh in on his own experience. When bringing up the file that Solomon had provided, a few holes are filled and new questions are produced.
Reshanda had apparently left the party with a male named Jordan, confirming the vocal evidence she provided, that was initially unreliable due to the extensive damage done to her lips and tongue. He had choked her out, and left the scene, not realizing that she was still alive.
Once they realized they were indeed describing the same male, Kai is able to apply the logic that he had changed clothes after the assault at another location. Jordan had returned to destroy evidence of his involvement with the assault, using someone else's vehicle.
Jordan likely taken her phone in an attempt to remove text records, which Kai can assume that was what he had thrown into the blaze. It was spared by dumb luck, or the girl accidentally knocking it away from the fire when escaping the vehicle.
The logical conclusion with such a tight timeframe, and having left the same direction twice, is that he was getting changed, getting gas, and borrowing a vehicle at the location he is fleeing to. Maybe a relative or a friend?
This house might have some more evidence to provide to secure an arrest with the LVPD, and on the Changeling side of things, get a lead towards finding this guy's drug supply that he had initially provided to Reshanda, and was also likely handing out at the party.
With Oren's more intimate perspective, Reshanda's death was likely motivated in the heat of the moment, due to her father snitching on the previous lab, and is just a victim of circumstance.
Conclusion: These aren't professionals. Dealers likely have no idea how far this operation spreads, but can be plied for more leads.
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Post by Kai Rose on Oct 5, 2020 21:14:00 GMT -8
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Oct 6, 2020 2:35:45 GMT -8
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Post by Kai Rose on Oct 6, 2020 13:31:34 GMT -8
Kai aims them to cruise some nightspots to find a drug dealer, but there's something in her eyes, something visible to Oren in the dark brown and navy blue quietly radiating under her skin... She just isn't on her game. Can Oren find them the dealer they need?
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Oct 7, 2020 2:20:40 GMT -8
Events like these always needed a bathroom. For things that needed imbibing or expelling in private. A classic scene. A blonde woman sits at the porcelin throne. Her brunette friend holds her hair back from its maw as she gives up the contents of her stomach. They cry together.
Oren looked at himself; herself; themself; itself in the mirror. The only thing he had to keep him company was the poor lighting and the Greek Chorus in his bones.
He wanted to scream, so Oren thought of Ricky Lake. Tall. Skinny. All patchy, as if he had taken pencil shavings and pasted it along his jawline. Ricky Lake loved cocaine. His wife of one year divorced him for almost killing their daughter. All over a cake. She'd have reason to worry because well...all that sugar wasn't really sweet, now was it?
"I told you once already bitch. Don't make me have to tell you again. Now get your ass off the floor and make me some fucking food before I..."
As for where Ricky Lake was now, Oren could not say. The playwright who fashioned him hasn't written since. But the words stuck to him like sweat and fog and old blood. And it was these lines and stage directions that changed how he walked. He surrendered to the music. He looked at pretty people. Pretty people looked at him. Did one of them sell drugs?
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