Tcr 11) Code Blue

After gearing up I walked the corpse through one of Manifest’s portals to see him standing in the middle of a waiting room of some kind. With dozens of monitor sized warped circles of air all around him, each one giving him a different view from up above the arena.

Stepping out of the portal, I immediately fell over as the floor on this side of the portal was a good foot lower than from the other side.

"Rise and shine Orpheus. The officer's name is John Ortega, and we're on the lookout for any cop with that name tag or wandering around without one. T-rex is trying to pick up the guy's scent, and Fable has her entire pantheon out on lower power levels."

With all of her summons out they would just be images, without any physical presence, but still able to see, think, and yell if they spotted someone.

He glanced over to see me struggling to my feet on half frozen limbs and threw up his hands. “It’s alive. Alive!”

Even though he had been learning sign language along with me and the rest of the team he wasn't picking it up that quickly, but the sign I used for a two word combo was well known, and only needed one finger.

He grinned and looked back at his peepholes. "We got some more people coming in, but we are on our own for the moment, The Circle is prepping to guard a transfer from the city lockup to the plane that will be taking some people to the Vault.”

The Circle was the senior team of Concentric City and had a lot of the Royal’s parents on their team, as well as a lot of auxiliary members including Core himself. I had been surprised to learn that Manifest’s mom, Emergent, Transporter 4, didn’t just “Push“ prisoners directly to the Vault. But some serious Genius work had been done to stop any Transporter-type powers from getting past the prison’s defenses.

I took a quick glance around to make sure me and Manifest were alone before reaching up to the device taped to the front of the voiceless Talon's corpse and pressed down.

In the shrill electronic sounding voice which the Electrolarynx allowed me to speak with, I asked the Transporter. "Is there a target worth hitting here, or did they just need a Police uniform for somewhere else?”

Manifest jumped around a stared at me with wide eyes, "What the… I have to work with the walking dead, and now you got a robot voice?"

I threw my head back as if looking to the heavens before looking back at him and making a "Get on with it." wave of my hand. In response, the now blue haired Super pressed his finger along the back of his ear to open a com line.

"Royal court. Orpheus thinks our target may have just wanted the uniform for somewhere else."

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Shimmer’s voice sounded off from the earbud stuck inside the dead man’s left ear. “If it’s Mockingbird he might be trying to get to his sister. Ortega is a Sergeant, that won’t get him as far as Shrike, but it could get him pretty deep inside lock up.”

Fable spoke up next. "Mockingbird isn't a shapeshifter, he's an illusionist. He just dresses up as who he's imitating in case he slips up. Orpheus can see through my Summons, he might see through other illusions as well.”

"Okay, game plan," Shimmer explained in case anyone else had any better ideas. "We can spare Orpheus from the search, so Manifest gets him to the Central Station maximum security cells. Then Manny comes back. We still might be dealing with something here, and if Orpheus spots the mimic, the Core Commandos can deal with him. Comments?”

I pressed the artificial Larynx again. "Make him explain instead of just dumping me off. It's not like they're going to know my face, and it isn't impossible for Raptor's people to spray paint one of their troopers."

Manifest called out, "On it." and opened a portal of force twisting the air in a hole in front of him before stepping through it, with me a few steps behind.

I had learned to step over the swirly part on the bottom of his portals. It tended to grab a hold of you and start spinning you around as well. And now I also checked the height to the ground as well.

The two of us found ourselves standing on a bulky seven story tall building decorated with a lot of statues of blindfolded women. Core liked having a lot of statues around, they were easier to have walk around and hit people than tearing a human shaped section of wall out of the side of a building.

Instead of making our way up the classical stairs leading up one story to the columned main entrance, I followed Manifest as he ran up to a security door on the side of the steps and held up his hero ID, I got out one of my copies as well.

"We got a possible infiltration heading for the heavy security cell block. Orpheus here might be able to see through Mockingbird's imitation of Sargent Ortega. We figured he could do more good here than wandering around the Arena."

There was a buzz which the Transporter took as an invitation to open the door, revealing a waiting room on the other side with a police officer standing behind some thick glass waving up through as she spoke into a headset. “That someone higher up’s call, but you can wait in here.”

Manifest patted me on the shoulder and wished me “Good luck. Try to warn people first instead of jumping him on your own if he shows up.” Then he was off into another portal.

I waited.

Then. I waited some more.

The woman behind the glass kept giving me confused looks as I stood there staring at her through the tinted goggles and standing there completely motionless and silent. Like a psychopath.

People usually picked up on the lack of breathing, not consciously, but they still felt like something was off.

I headed over to lean against the wall off to the side.

Then a guy in a police uniform, but with extra bent things on the shoulders, walked in from the outside.

He had little blue feathers sticking out from under his hat and from his chin. The police uniform hung from him like a sack, aside from where it didn't quite reach his ankles or wrists. It looked like Sargent Ortega was a much wider but shorter man than Mockingbird.

The villain froze for a moment as he came in the door, holding up Ortega's ID card, as he saw me standing there, before turning to show the card to the Police officer behind the glass.

I pointed at him and shouted. “Ch’Graggg!”

Oh yeah, no vocal cords.

The supervillain looked a little freaked out, as did the police officer. By the time I had my hand on the device on my neck, he was already across the room and kicking me in the gut, driving all the air out of my current body's lungs.

So much for warning anyone.

I grabbed bird boy by the shoulder and pulled him in even as I rammed my head forwards to head bunt him. He let out an "Ow!" and rocked back a few steps, before just standing there staring at me.

Looking toward the officer speaking into her headset with a panicked look, I was shocked to see her staring at me.

I touched my throat. “It’s Ortega, not Ortega, it’s Mockingbird.” I pointed at the villain who had backed up to the opposite wall, looking from me to the inner door.

Then he rushed forward with at least a Quick rank 1 super speed to dig his talon tipped fingers into my current body’s throat.