[Superfreaks/ACRA] Superfreaks Season 2 #11

[Martin Phipps]

Michael King, Mary Bailey and Lana Lewis: crime scene
investigators.  John Phelps, Mark Johnston and Tom
Jackson: police officers.  Jack Greenspan and Edward
Bailey: medical examiners.  Alan Russell and Cliff
Murdock: lawyers.  These are the men and women who
are truly our last line of defense.  But what about
the capes whose cases they have to investigate? 
Should they be considered a help or a hindrance? 

                  SUPERFREAKS SEASON 2 #11

                          GENESIS

                           PART I

9:15 am

  "Who the Hell are you?"
  "Ethan Stanley Boyle."
  "Where's the other guy?"
  "He can't be here."
  "Why not?"
  "Legal reasons.  But don't worry."  Ethan grabbed
hold of his cigarette and exhaled some smoke.  "I'm
just as good."
  "Really?"
  "Of course.  I'm E. Stan Boyle."
  "Not... the other guy."
  "No, E. Stan Boyle."
  "Not... the other guy."
  "No, E. Stan Boyle."
  "Not... the other guy."
  "No, I'm E. Stan Boyle."
  "Fair enough.  The girl is in her room."
  "Which room is that?"
  "The one where all the screaming is coming from."
  Ethan nodded.  "Over there then."

  Ethan opened the door and went in.  Young Stephanie
Baxter was strapped to her bed.
  "You!" she said when she saw Ethan.  Her eyes were
solid black with no discernable pupils.
  "Yes, daemon, it is me."
  "Ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Do you think you can exorcize
me from this girl?"
  "No," Ethan said as he pulled out a gun.  "I'm going
to destroy you by killing the girl."
  "You wouldn't!"
  "Don't count on it!"  He pulled the trigger three
times.  There were three distinct bangs heard.
  The daemon resumed laughing.  "Blanks!  I knew you
were too much of a pussy to kill a little girl!"
  "Don't be so sure," Ethan said.  He grabbed the girl
and pulled her out of the bed, breaking the straps in
the process.  He then threw her out the window.  They
were five storeys up.
  The girl landed safely on a huge airbag that had
been placed in the street.
  Ethan pulled out his cell phone and quick dialed his
friend.  "Chuck?  Talk to me!"
  >>The girl is no longer the daemon's host.<<
  "Are you sure?"
  >>Absolutely.  Because I am now possessing your
friend.<<
  "What?"
  >>And now you will go to jail for the murder of
Stephanie Baxter.<<
  Ethan ran to the window and looked down to see Chuck
Huxley smashing Stephanie Baxter's head on the road.

10:58 am 

  Detective John Phelps was pissed.
  "We have witnesses that saw you throw the girl out
the window!" he said.
  "The girl landed safely on the airbag!" Ethan
insisted.
  "So you say.  Maybe you missed.  Maybe the girl
bounced off the bag and hit her head on the ground."
  "That's not how it happened!"
  "Then tell me what happened!"
  "It was my friend, Charles Huxley."
  "You had an accomplice?"
  "No!  He was possessed by a daemon!"
  John rolled his eyes.  "You think I haven't heard
that one before?"
  "Perhaps this time it's true," Detective Michael
King said.  "I just finished examining the body: death
was from blunt force trauma to the head, consistent
with her head hitting the ground."
  John nodded.  "Right.  She fell and hit her head
after Ethan here threw her out the window."
  "Unlikely.  From five stories up, you would have
expected other bones to be broken.  Also there was
blood spatter on the ground."
  "So?"
  "So that means she hit the ground more than once. 
That's not consistent with falling from a great
height.  It's consistent with somebody repeatively
smashing her head on the ground."
  "What?  You mean there'd be no blood spatter if she
had just hit the ground?"
  Michael shook her head.  "No.  If she hits her head
then the skull gets crushed and she bleeds out but if
she is hit repeatively then blood is spattered over a
wider area."
  "Okay."
  "I also found a depression in the air bag consistent
with the girl hitting it from five stories up.  I
found hairs on the airbag that I expect will match the
victim.  There would appear to have been a struggle in
which the girl was pulled off the airbag and smashed
against the ground."
  John nodded.  "Okay.  Fair enough."  He turned to
face Ethan again.  "So who's this Charles Huxley?"
  "He's my friend.  We've been working together for
years."
  "As?"
  "Daemon hunters.  I can tell when a person is
possessed by a daemon."
  John laughed.  "Really?  And so you go around
killing people who are daemon possessed?"
  "It's not like that.  We're trying to scare the
daemons out of the host body.  If the host dies then
the daemon dies."
  "So, like I said, you're killing the hosts to get to
the daemons."
  Ethan shook his head.  "That's not necessary.  When
the daemons leave the host's body they need to find
another host to occupy or they'll die."
  "How long do they have?" Michael asked.
  "It depends on the daemon.  Stronger daemons can
last longer."
  "But in a city like Pepperton, isn't it easy for a
daemon to find a new host?"
  Ethan frowned.  "Normally a daemon will enter a body
when it is asleep."
  "But your friend Charles wasn't sleeping, was he?"
  Ethan shook his head.  "No... and that's the part
that was weird.  Most daemons aren't strong enough to
possess a body while it is still awake."
  "How long have you been after these daemons?"
  "A few years.  But people have been daemon hunting
for centuries.  We don't know where they first came
from but we have reason to believe that they are a
dying breed and that there are very few of them left."

  Michael nodded.  "Natural selection."
  "Excuse me?"
  "Daemon hunters have been killing daemons for
centuries.  The weak ones were killed first.  The ones
that survived were the ones that broke the rules."
  "I guess."
  "Wait," John said.  He pulled John to one side. 
"Are you seriously buying this crap?"
  Michael smiled.  "I'm keeping an open mind.  We do
know somebody who would be an expert regarding these 
matters."

                         PART II

1:01 pm (the same day)

  "Mary Jones?"
  Mary looked up and saw Lana Lewis carrying a
cardboard box.
  "Actually, I call myself Mary Bailey now," she said.
  "Right.  You got married.  How is that going?"
  "Fine.  I'm pregnant."
  "Right.  Michael told me."  She juggled the box. 
"So... where do I put this?"
  Mary tilted her head to one side.  "Over there. 
That desk is yours."
  "Okay."  She put the box down.  "So we're
neighbours."
  Mary sighed.  "Great."
  Lana frowned.  "Are you okay with this?"
  "Okay with what?"
  "Me coming in here and becoming a senior CSI based
on my FBI experience."
  "Why would I have a problem with that?"
  "You tell me."
  Mary smiled.  "You don't think I'm being friendly
enough."
  Lana sighed.  "We're going to be working together. 
I was thinking we could be friends.  If we work on
cases together then it would be easier for you to take
time off when you have your baby.  And then you can do
the same for me."
  "You're going to have a baby too?"
  Lana smiled.  "No.  Not yet.  But I might.  Michael
and I are going to get married.  He did tell you,
didn't he?"
  "He told me."
  "So I figure we can think of ourselves as family."
  "Family?"
  "Sure.  We were already coleagues in the
investigation business.  Now we're coworkers.  Soon we
will be friends... hopefully.  Maybe later we will
raise our kids together."
  Mary nodded and smiled.  "That doesn't sound so
bad."
  "I would have thought it was a pretty good deal,
actually."
  They both laughed.

1:30 pm 

  "Does his story agree with what you know about
daemonic possession, professor?" Detective Michael
King asked Pepperton University Paranormal Studies
Professor Vincent Stomper.
  Stomper nodded.  "I've heard of daemon hunting
cults."
  "Now hold on," Ethan said.  "I don't think cult is
the right term.  These daemons are real."
  "I didn't say they weren't," Stomper said.
  "So how do we fight it?" Michael asked.
  "I have just the thing," Stomper said, "but it's not
here.  Perhaps you can come with me to my apartment. 
I live right off campus."
  "I don't think that would be a problem," Michael
said.

1:45 pm

  "Excuse me?" Doctor Richard Reed asked the stranger
in his lab.  "Can I help you?"
  "Ah!  Doctor Reed!  I'm Peter Hanks."  They shook
hands.  "I'm here to get a sample from the body of the
alien who Extreme killed.  The one from the
Anti-Dimension.  The one that shot beams of high
energy particles from his hands."
  "For what reason?"
  Doctor Hanks hesitated.  "Can I speak to you frankly
as one scientist to another?"
  "Sure."
  "Alright.  I was thinking that a sample of the alien
DNA could be used to determine if it could be possible
to enhance an ordinary human being and give him the
ability to resist injury, spontaneously heal, gain
super strength, perhaps even flight and then perhaps
this process could be duplicated and we could create
an entire army of such fighters."
  Doctor Reed nodded his head for a moment.  "Oh,
well, alright then.  That seems perfectly in order. 
Nothing wrong with that.  Go ahead."

1:59 pm

  "So what's this?" Michael asked.
  "This is the spirit sword," Professor Stomper said
as he swung it in front of his guests.  "It looks like
an ordinary sword."
  "But it's not an ordinary sword, is it?" Ethan
asked.
  "No.  It isn't."  Stomper swung the sword at Ethan
and the sword passed harmlessly through him."
  "Holy shit!" Detective John Phelps said.  "What the
Hell did you just do?"
  "Relax," Stomper said.  "This blade doesn't harm
people.  It only harms the daemons that possess them."
  "I had heard of such a sword," Ethan said.  "I
thought it was a myth."
  "It's not a myth," Stomper said.  "And now, it's
yours."
  "Mine?"
  "Of course.  You are the one who has the ability to
spot those who are possessed by daemons.  It is only
logical that you should be the one to weild the
sword."
  "Now hold on," John said.  "This man is a suspect in
a murder investigation."
  Michael sighed.  "He's the one man who can identify
Charles Huxley," Michael said, "and the man best
suited to kill the daeomn inside of him."

                        PART III

2:47 pm

  "Hey," Officer Tom Jackson said.  "Is that him?  Is
that Charles Huxley?"
  Officer Mark Johnston looked through the windshield
of their squad car.  "Looks like him.  I'll pull over
so you can talk to him."
  "Hey!  Charles Huxley!" Tom said.
  Charles turned and looked at him.  His eyes were
black with no discernable pupils.
  "Holy shit!"
  Charles picked up the squad car and threw it across
the road and into the building on the other side.
  "Mark!  Mark!  Are you okay?"
  Mark nodded.  "Yeah.  Good thing we had on our
seatbelts, eh?"  There was a bit of blood on his head
from where the frame of the car hit him as it crushed
down on him.  "I think we'd better radio for back up."

2:59 pm

  "Tom and Mark said they spotted Charles Huxley on
main street," Detective John Phelps said.  "And they
said he lifted their car and threw it across the
road."
  "Are they okay?" Detective Michael King asked.
  "Just some scrapes and bruises.  Nothing serious."
  "This is bad," Professor Stomper said from the back
of the car.
  "Thank you, Psychic Girl!" Ethan said with dripping
sarcasm.
  Stomper glared at the daemon hunter next to him and
sighed.  "Perhaps I am not needed on this quest," he
said.
  "On the contrary," Michael said, "we need as many
experts as we can get today."  He pointed to an
overturned squad car.  "Is that them?" he asked.
  "I hope so," John said.  "I hadn't heard of any
other squad cars being thrown about."
  John pulled the car over to where Tom and Mark were.
 "Which way did he go?"
  "That way," Tom said.  "Be careful."
  "Shouldn't the Extreme Force Six be involved in
this?" Mark asked.
  "By all means contact them," Michael said.  "We
might need them.  But I don't want to wait around. 
We've got a plan."
  John rolled his eyes.  Attacking a daemon with a
magic sword that isn't there: great plan.  He drove
off in the direction Tom had indicated.

3:05 pm

  "Is that him?" Michael asked.
  "That's him," Ethan said.  "He's possessed by the
daemon all right."
  "Drive up next to him," Michael told John.
  "And if he picks up the car?"
  Michael nodded.  "Ethan, you'd better act fast."
  "Got ya."
  John grimaced.  "Sounds like suicide to me.  Why
don't we just stop here and draw our guns?"
  "The daemon won't care if we kill Charles: he'll
just find another host.  We have to strike while he's
still in him."
  "Fine," John says, "but I'll include my
recommendation in the report."
  "Duly noted," Michael said.
  John pulled the car up next to Charles and Ethan got
out to face him.  Charles' eyes were still black with
no discernable pupils.
  "You again," the daemon in Charles had him say. 
"You can't hurt me."
  "Oh yes I can!" Ethan said as he raised his sword.
  "What's that supposed to be?" the daemon asked.
  "Your destruction!"
  Ethan struck Charles body.  The daemon screamed. 
Charles eyes went back to normal.
  "What happened?" Charles asked.
  "Don't worry," Ethan said.  "It's going to be okay."
  "Actually, it's not that simple," Michael said. 
"We're going to have to take him back to the station
and charge you with the murder of Stephanie Baxter."
  "What?" Ethan and Charles both asked.
  "The law doesn't recognize daemonic possession.  "We
will, however, give you a full psychological
evaluation with a mind towards having you plead
temporary insanity.  I take it you have no memory of
what happened?"
  "What's he talking about?" Charles asked.  "How did
I get here?"
  John sighed.  "Is there any chance that this could
all be an elaborate hoax?" he asked.
  "That's for a jury to decide."  He spoke to Charles.
 "Get in," he said.
  Ethan nodded.  "They're right.  Come on, Charles. 
I'll slide over.  Vincent, do you mind making room for
us."
  "Not at all," Vincent said.  "It's not that far to
the station, after all."

6:25 pm 

  >>I'm back with Harry Roy, former member of the
Electric Youth as Arrow Boy and recently released from
Pepperton State Prison for the murder of Edward
Alexander Goodhead.  Harry, what's next for you?<<
  >>No superheroics, that's for sure, Larry!  I've put
that behind me!  I've finally realized that there's no
glory to be found in taking the law into your own
hands!  It's up to regular law enforcement to enforce
the law!<<
  >>Have you considered a career in legitamate law
enforcement, what with your experience as a costumed
adventurer?<<
  >>Larry, with all due respect, I doubt if they would
take me seriously.  What I did would hardly be
considered a righteous shooting after all.  I shot a
man in cold blood.  The fact that he was a known
criminal who had killed somebody close to me doesn't
change what I did.<<
  Edward Alexander Goodhead Junior pressed the mute
button on his remote control.  "No, it doesn't," he
said.  He pointed to the now silenced Harry Roy.  "You
will pay for what you did to my father!  That I
swear!"

6:30 pm

  Somewhere in Pepperton, an old man woke up.  His
eyes were black with no discernable pupils.  He sat up
and looked out the window.
  "That... hurt," he said, "but what doesn't kill us
just makes us stronger.  And next time there won't be
anything that will stop me!"

                    TO BE CONTINUED

Martin "Happy birthday to me" Phipps


       
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