Investigation 2: The Mothman

Haven's bike ride home from school was usually uneventful, with each weekday seeming to end the same way as the same route they always took lead them through the same boring streets each and every school day.

For once, though, things wouldn't be the same today.

Haven hit the brakes hard as they rounded a street corner and came to an abrupt stop in front of a car wreck that seemed to be covered in a thick layer of...

Ice?

The wreck itself was odd too; it looked as if it had crashed into a wall, but its completely undamaged surroundings and position in the middle of road raised the question of how that would've happened to begin with. As they paused to assess the situation, the Rainbow-Eyed Man suddenly appeared in the chrome of the car's smashed-up bumper.

"Hey, I don't want to rush you or anything, but it looks like someone's still in here." The man said. "The angle of the rear-view mirror is only letting me see so much, but it doesn't seem like they're moving."

"What should I do?" Haven asked as they dismounted their bike and approached the wrecked car.

"Normally I'd suggest using sound to shatter the ice, but if the person in there is frozen, you run the risk of shattering them too." The man hmmed. "Try to melt the ice around the driver's door so you can open it up and get a better look."

Haven nodded and raised their left arm in front of them, using their reflection in the chrome to interact with the Novutrix. Despite lacking a transformation dedicated to generating heat, they had an idea of how to work around that.

File:Cipher Haven Card.png
As soon as they had transformed, Cipher engraved the word "Melt" into the palm of their hand and walked over to the driver's side door. Placing their hand against the ice caused it to melt away, allowing them to open the door. Cipher's ability to see infrared light allowed them to assess the temperature of the person inside, and while their core was still warm, indicating that they were still alive somehow, their extremities were just as cold as the ice surrounding them.

In spite of being quite literally frozen in place, there were no signs of frostbite, which was... odd. It almost seemed like they had been placed in a form of cryostasis rather than haphazardly iced over, but why? How? The obvious answer was that an alien was involved, but why ice a random driver and go through the effort of not killing them in the process?

Their train of though was interrupted as a police car suddenly pulled up nearby, with Sheriff Mary Hemsworth and Deputy Barnes emerging from the vehicle with their weapons drawn.

"Back away from the civilian." Mary ordered, aiming her gun squarely at Cipher's head.

Cipher backed off, allowing Sheriff Hemsworth to approach the frozen driver as Deputy Barnes kept his own gun aimed in Cipher's general direction, albeit quite shakily.

"What happened here?" Mary demanded, glancing between Cipher and the driver.

"...Not sure." Cipher figured their best play was just to cooperate for now. "Just arrived several minutes ago. Car was already frozen. Driver's frozen too, but still alive. No frostbite, but likely still needs medical treatment."

"I see." Mary said. "Barnes, call for an ambulance."

"W-wait, you're just gonna take this- *whatever it is* on its word?!" Barnes exclaimed.

"Of course not, but it's a start, and either way the victim needs medical care we can't provide." Mary glared at him. "Just call the damn ambulance."

"R-right away, si- um, ma'am!"

As Deputy Barnes gave a quick, nervous solute and pulled out his phone to call the hospital, Mary looked over at Cipher with a steely gaze.

"As for *you*," She said. "What are you and what are you doing here?"

"I'm an alien and I live here." Cipher replied without thinking.

"You *live* here?" Mary raised a questioning eyebrow.

Crap, probably shouldn't have said that. Cipher couldn't think of any convincing ways to backpedal, so they instead decided to double down.

"Remember the shadow creature that fought the electric Bigfoot?" Cipher tapped on the Novutrix symbol. "That was me."

"So you're saying that you're... *multiple* aliens, is that correct?" Mary's eyes narrowed.

Cipher nodded.

There was a brief, tense moment of silence where Mary looked the alien up and down as if she were sizing them up.

"...Alright, I'll buy it." Mary said. "You can leave."

"Really?" Cipher blinked.

"Yes, really." Mary scowled. "Now get out of here before I change my mind."

Cipher, curious about Mary's decision but unwilling to push their luck, swiftly nodded and grabbed their bike, riding it awkwardly away from the scene.

"You're just letting them go?!" Barnes asked in disbelief as he put away his phone. "Why?!"

"If it weren't for them, that electric alien would've destroyed the town." Mary said. "No sense making enemies of a potentially benevolent unknown lifeform."

"I guess, but that's kinda risky, ain't it?" Barnes said. "I mean, how do we know that they ain't the one responsible for this accident in the first place?"

Almost as if in response to this question, the lady in the vehicle began to stir, muttering something under her breath.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" Mary immediately switched her attention to the driver. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"Moth... m... moth..."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't make out what you're saying." Mary said. "An ambulance is on its way. We'll put this conversation on hold until you've recovered a bit, alright?"

The woman suddenly jerked up as if awakening from a bad dream.

"MOTHMAN!" She screamed before abruptly losing consciousness again.

"Mothman?" Barnes repeated with a confused look.

"...Mothman." Mary nodded.

"Mothman?" Mr. Leeds asked.

After secretly jumping into a nearby bush to listen in on the cops' conversation, Haven had made their way down to the Museum of Oddities and gotten the owner's attention before aggressively pointing at a small display of several old newspaper articles concerning the first sightings of Mothman. They quickly nodded in response to Leed's question.

"Well, it's a cryptid that was reportedly sighted in the Point Pleasant area for about a year in the 60s." Mr. Leeds explained. "Some sort of humanoid creature with huge wings and glowing red eyes. Some folks say it was connected to the 1967 collapse of the nearby Silver Bridge that ended up killing 46 people. Ever since then, it's gotten somewhat of a reputation for being a harbinger of death that appears before large disasters. Whether it's trying to warn people about these disasters or causing them itself, we may never know."

"Could it freeze people?" Haven asked.

"Um..." Mr. Leeds blinked, caught off-guard by this seemingly out of left field question. "I suppose that with cryptids anything is possible, but there were never any reports of it doing that. Why do you ask?"

Haven simply shrugged and walked out of the museum, leaving behind a rather confused Mr. Leeds.

After waiting until nightfall, reasoning that finding a creature with glowing red eyes may be easier to spot in the dark, Haven had left their house and started making their way north towards the outskirts of town. Highland only had a single bridge nearby, an old wooden structure spanning a 30-meter-wide ravine with a shallow river at the bottom that only one car was allowed to cross at a time. It was admittedly a shaky connection to make from the whole "Mothman" thing, but at least it was *something*.

"Oh, it's just a local." The creature grunted. "Scram, ya little creep, I'm busy."

Haven squinted at them. The Mothman was supposed to have glowing *red* eyes, but this creature's eyes were clearly blue; that said, everything else about it *was* very Mothman-like, so they were hesitant to write it off right away.

"Okay, what's with you?" The creature touched down a few meters away from her with an annoyed look. "Every other human I've met's had the common sense to be scared of me. Why are you just standing there like an idiot?"

"Are you Mothman?" Haven decided to ask point-blank.

"I- what the hell is a "Mothman"?" The creature scowled. "Unless that's some sort of slur for "Necrofriggian", no, I'm not."

"Alien, then?" Haven followed up.

"Well, from your perspective, yes." The Necrofriggian huffed. "You seem a lot less shocked by all this than you should be." It paused for a moment. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be the new sap hosting that invisible watch, would you?"

Haven nodded.

"I guess that explains that." The Necrofriggian tsked. "You sure gave Munkky a pounding, not that I can blame you; most people who have to put up with him long enough want to kick his rear end."

"Why did you attack that woman in the car?" Haven asked.

"To give her a good scare." The Necrofriggian said. "Figure if I pull off enough stunts like that, you people will start to leave this town on your own before the rest of the Expedition gets here and all hell breaks loose. It'd make things a lot easier for everyone."

"I can't let you do that." Haven said. "This town is our home."

"And it'll be your graveyard too if you don't book it." The Necrofriggian stated.

"I won't let you kill anyone, either." Haven's fists tightened.

"Not what I meant, pipsqueak." The Necrofriggian tsked. "This town is doomed, Expedition or no Expedition. If you want to let everybody stay here, blissfully ignorant of their upcoming deaths, that's *your* prerogative. *Mine* is getting this job done without creating a huge ruckus. I know you humans are territorial, but what could possibly be so special about this place that you'd risk death to stay here?"

"We don't have anywhere else to go even if we wanted to leave." Haven pointed out. "We're not a rich town. Most of us can't afford to move."

"Damn, sucks to suck." The Necrofriggian shrugged. "Alright then, Plan B."

"What's "Plan B"?" Haven asked.

"I'm just gonna put you all on ice and stash you somewhere until this all blows over." The Necrofriggian unfurled its wings and rose back into the air. "Trust me, it's better than the alternative."

As the Necrofriggian flew off towards town, Haven rushed over to the bridge and looked over the railing to see their reflection in the river below.

"Use Oblithium to go after him; it's that diamond-shaped hologram on your playlist." The Rainbow-Eyed Man advised, appearing behind their reflection. "It's the only transformation that can fly under its own power."

Haven nodded and activated the Novutrix, scrolling through its holograms until finding the one the Rainbow-Eyed Man had described and pressing down on the dial, transforming into it in a flash of green light.

"What the-"

The Necrofriggian turned their head to find themselves being chased by a floating shard-like alien surrounded by several pointed hard-light constructs.

Oblithium Card

"A Ramiel Monolith, of all things?" The Necrofriggian groaned. "This is *not* what I needed today."