He Who Fights Monsters

Nicole Taylor

### The rats in the walls

Nicole Taylor is sitting in her apartment on the fourth floor of the construct, when suddenly Shadow comes walking in, carrying a rat in her mouth. Rather disgusted, and unsure where the rat comes from, Nicole tentatively thanks Shadow for the catch and prepares to clean up the carcass.

Meanwhile in the Ardennes, Franklin Salisbury is taking his girlfiend Stefanie out on a drive in his (hot-rodded) Mobile Laboratory Van, when they suddenly spot something walking on the road. After Stefanie growled "wyrm-spawn", Franklin stopped the van and got out, looking at the creature, while Stefanie jumped out. The creature, shambling and missing most of his face, was quickly determined to be "a bad thing", and Franklin shot it just before Stefanie pounced it in Crinos form, ripping it to shreds.

Back in Antwerp, Patricia Jane was having rat issues as well - with the Feed just having ordered pizza for their department, the gathered were disgusted to find that most of the pizza boxes contained rats.

After dealing with the initial cleanup, both Nicole and Patricia noticed something odd about the rats - they were not just mangy, but almost corpse-like in appearance (even pre-feline mauling). A quick analysis showed signs of extradimensional influence, so Nicole performed a quick construct-wide scan - and quickly picked up Patricia's intruders, as well as two more in the basement. Franklin was also contacted, and - believing the incidents to be connected - called back to base.

Quickly switching with Patrica, the two sounded the intrusion alarm, and (Patricia's being taken care of) headed off to the two stragglers in the basement. It didn't take long to track the intruder - a Bane, infesting all the rats at once as a "hive mind" of sorts. Acting quickly, Nicole put a EDE-trap around the currently present portion of the bane, trapping it, and making the present two rats free and easy to deal with.

Further analysis by Patricia noted the source of the infestation to be the pizza delivery girl from earlier - when delivering the pizza's, she used a special device on the outside of the building, followed by rats crawling out of her clothes and into the construct. Michiel Bloemers, since brought up to speed on the ongoing affairs, quickly identified it as SPD tech to break through wards such as those on the construct.

With the Bane determined to still be in a hive mind, and not susceptible to mental intrusion, Nicole decided to clean it up - by using a Spatial/DimSci procedure to bridge the distance to the whole of the hive mind. This turned out to be quite effective indeed - reports quickly came from above about an interview filming a pizza delivery girl in the background of their shots suddenly collapsing into nothing, only leaving her clothes. Descriptions matched the girl from earlier.

### The plot thickens

Going into damage control mode, the team quickly headed to the scene, with the construct ordered on lockdown and all teams called in, expecting the incursion to be the precursor for further attacks. Intercepting the phone call to the police, Nicole calmed the callers down. Patricia, meanwhile, altered the recorded images to show the girl leaving in a more mundane means, and followed up Nicole's preliminary work with a more in-depth Mind approach.

Franklin, meanwhile, arrived at the location, and the team collected their bearings. As Franklin inspected the pile of clothes to see if he could see any similarities with his own encounter, he noticed that the entire skin of the girl remained - although missing everything inside. The disturbing finding did quickly lead the team to identify the girl as Aisha, a young woman missing since 3 weeks prior.

As the team was taking control of the scene, information came in that seemed promising. Patricia received a call from Alt-Patricia, since working for an orphanage; she noticed a recent trend of orphans from an orphanage called "The Fellowship" being placed, outside of normal channels, with families that would not normally qualify, which Alt-Patricia sensed to have something to do with a problem Patricia was facing.

Meanwhile, Franklin heard from a prominent actor, featuring in one of the films that served as a cover for Franklin's Power Suit usage, about strange dealings at a talent agency called "Registered Artists Worldwide".

Shelving those issues for now, however, the team first went after Aisha, the pizza girl. Visiting the local pizzeria, the team quickly hit a wall, as all deliveries were handled by an external delivery company. While those records would be obtainable by intelligence teams, it would take some time.

As they were preparing to head off, they received a phone call from a distressed Michiel; he obtained visuals on what happened to Aisha two weeks prior, following the lead from a business card found on Aisha. Not wanting to waste any more time than neccesary, Nicole established a spatial link back to the construct to be active in both places at once, while Patricia linked up to the construct with a Data connection.

The scene that Michiel found was horrific indeed; through a mix of (relatively) mundane torture and technephandic procedure, Aisha's skin was removed while still (briefly) alive, then to be stuffed by the rats that were found earlier. While disturbing, the scene did prove to provide a valuable lead; Nicole identified the executioner to be "Doc Veridian", a sketchy doctor encountered earlier in the team's career, but never falling under deep scrutiny. Veridian lead both a personal workout program, as well as a controversial "gay cure"-therapy called Homogeniety. What's more, Franklin's analysis of the corpse he found earlier found that he was registered as one of the gay men enrolled in Homogeniety's program.

### The Fellowship

Intelligence on Aisha's pizza deliveries arrived, identifying the locations she visited. Quick analysis showed that all locations (except the construct) were childless couples. Puzzled, and no longer in any mood to take half measures, Nicole simultaneously tapped into any devices capable of surveillance in all locations listed. As it turned out, most were, now, not childless - many now housed an adolescent child. Cross-referencing the orphanage from earlier, it turned out that these were the children recently placed outside normal channels.

Patricia analysed the children's records and current housing situation, and found that to the last, the houses were incapable of caring for their new wards. Tragically, all the new foster parents were still more than willing to do the work, but because of a combination of the orphan's tragic backgrounds and the foster parents' failings, their further upbringing would result in an unstable household and foster an environment of bitter and hate. Those prospective parents that Aisha visited that would prove effective parents - and those so obviously disfunctional to attract immediate attention - were left childless.

Luckly, the placements were all quite recent. The team contacted support groups, through Sofie and Alt-Patricia, that would be able to care for the children, either by re-homing them or providing the new foster family with the oversight and support so they would be able to provide a stable home.

### Doc Veridian

The team, along with Strike Team support, meanwhile arrived at the location of Doc Veridian, at his Homogeniety facilities. A building scan showed a likely 10 subjects in the wards, 2 in bad shape, as well as one in Veridian's office. AST3 was sent to secure the subjects, while Patricia, Salisbury and Nicole prepared to breach the office. Not wanting to waste time, Salisbury phased through the walls to open the door to the corridor. After breaching the office door without issue, he quickly immobilized him with Doorstopper spray before he could react. He proved not much of a threat after that.

AST3 had more issues upstairs. Most of the patients were easy enough to extract, if worse for wear after their stay. However, the two that were in bad shape had, in fact, been turned into the same monsters that Franklin and Stefanie encountered in the Ardennes. The monstered proved dangerous enough to gravely wound Peter, one of the team members - Nicole quickly moved upstairs to stabilize the wounds.

Veridian's field interrogation didn't provide any immediately usable information; at first he even seemed genuinely surprised that the team raided him while he was "helping rid the world of those faggots". After a while he did note that he now understood why he was send to Antwerp after a failure he made, pointing to connections above. He was prepared for transport to room 101, for further interrogation by Patricia.

Levi, meanwhile, had contacted the team and was getting up to speed on the night's events. Soon after, after noticing the teams were spread out dealing with the situation, he asked "so who is still at the construct?".

The team briefly paused as the realization set in - or, for Nicole, to realize that she was, in fact, still also at the construct. Just before she could finish asking why, a large crashing noise came from the front door.

### Construct Incursion

Rushing to the lobby, Nicole, along with the still present Michiel, were confronted with ten of the same shambling creatures. Nicole quickly took down two of the creatures with rapid shots. Michiel, not wasting any time, erased the part of the lobby containing the other eight from existence altogether.

Still, the ten creatures would not be the entirety of the attack, so Nicole quickly swept the building - and noticed a signal from the Bronze sector - the sub-basement vault holding dangerous materials. Quickly teleporting there, she started sweeping the area, quickly joined by Franklin who flew back to the construct at ludicrous speeds.

Soon after, they found the culprit - Sakura Takimura of the SPD stood defiantly confronting them. Throwing up a Prime Nullification Field, Nicole decided to wait to see what she had to say. Franklin did not, and shot Sakura - only for the shot to effortly pass through her, as Sakura was projecting a hologram for a distance.

She claimed to have a proposal for the team, after getting their attention - she, and her organisation, wanted to be left alone by Antwerp. The team was taken aback by the suggestion, and in no mood to make a deal, but Sakura turned out to have an ace up her sleeve - a failsafe ritual that, in the event of her death, would transport the entire construct to Autochtonia. Instead, Sakura offered, they could let the SPD operate in peace against their common enemy of Threat Null.

Still unconvinced, the team wondered why Sakura would, if she wanted to be left alone, operate so brazenly in Antwerp and provoke the team. Smiling, Sakura admitted that she did have an ulterior motive to her presence - to take Excalibur from Levi.

Taking that as a cue to step in, the team acted - Nicole joined Levi's behind-the-scene efforts to disrupt the construct-teleporting ritual, while Franklin released a power core from his suit - which Patricia quickly teleported to wherever Sakura was, via the Data link that her hologram provided. The explosion, at Sakura's actual location, was massive.

As it turns out, Sakura was not that easy to catch, however - soon after, they would receive a taunting note from Sakura, saying that she'd take this as a no. Meanwhile, no traces of the sword could be found at the explosion site - through whatever means, Sakura had escaped with the sword.

Learning of this, Nicole took the rather unorthodox step to contact Senex, archmage of the Euthanathos. Explaining all of Sakura's action, she hoped that the tradition of assassins would help eliminate their enemy. Succesfully making her case, Senex agreed that she should be "sent back on her journey on the great wheel" - although only committing intelligence and tracking resources, claiming that this was an enemy that the team would have to deal with personally.

### Another Night at the Theatre

Meanwhile, the team was not yet done, as there was still one loose end to pick up - the RAW talent agency.

Patricia decided to head in undercover, using her recent amateur acting experience. She sufficiently impressed the present talent hunter, who arranged a meeting later that evening with RAW's financial backer who would make the final decision. Before doing so, the team used the data obtained to find out the backer's identity - none other than Megan Taylor, Nicole's mother.

Not entirely knowing what to expect, Patricia went in to the interview. Megan seemed mostly oblivious to any nefarious dealing going on, but the conversation did lead to two important pieces of information - part of the funding came from what turned out to be Sakura, and Sakura had further maneuvred Megan to be invited to a performance of one of the hottest new plays in town - The Repairer of Reputations.

Learning that, the team decided to head straight to the source, and called up Hastur. She did in fact have a performance planned - a special one, even, as it would be performed in front of her sleeping brother on the bottom of the Pacific (temporarily moving the entire theatre there).

While they at first tried to discourage the plan altogether, that proved rather stressful for Hastur (and, as a result, a very dangerous proposition). A plan was thus devised to move the anti-Mental shielding effects along with them. As such, some enterprising (and/or insane) Void Engineers were contacted, including Matrim.

Thus prepared, the play went off without much of an issue, with Patricia nervously making sure none of the guest would actually look backwards to realize where they were. Matrim, as it turns out, went back to try and hook up with Hastur, this time instructing Patricia not to interfere. Megan, too, remained oblivious to what was going on (mostly being rather annoyed that Nicole invited Michiel and his new girlfriend - something Michiel was also none too happy about once he figured out where they were).

Thus settled, the team went to Nicole's home for a well deserved round of pizza, and to later draw up plans to prepare for Sakura's next strike.