[b]November 29th, 2019
9:15 PM, PT
The Small Café, Coast City[/b]

[hr][center][h3][color=#22ff00][u]Echo[/u][/color][/h3][/center]

Something was very wrong here. Ezra knew it the second he turned down the alley behind the The Small, the one that led to the unfinished subway entrance and the secret door to the alien bar. It felt like eyes were on him, a predator lurking around the corner, ready to catch him in it’s web and burn him up like a halsa’s favourite snack. It was not a pleasant feeling, and he slowed his steps as the tension mounted. He almost shrugged it off, putting it towards a return in his paranoia, which had begun to taper off over the last month, having gotten used to Jessie’s motor mouth, Yoski’s jokes about whatever was on TV, Benji’s frequent messages about new safe spaces he’d found as he moved across the country, and Lauren’s comforting smile and no-nonsense mothering she applied to everyone she met…

But he didn’t shrug it off, because there was blood in the alley way. Blue blood. [i]Alien[/i] blood. He quickened his steps, gripping tightly to the straps of his backpack and pulling his beanie further down his face, hiding his white hair. [i]Oh no,[/i] he thought worriedly, [i]what happened? Is someone hurt? Were we discovered?[/i] He hurried down the steps into the subway entrance and froze at the sight that greeted him; the walls were smeared with dark blue blood, and the gory remains of a familiar yellowish-green alien, torn tentacles and mushed brain matter scattered outside the door, which had been forcibly pried open and now hung from it’s hinges awkwardly.

He didn’t bother checking on him, Yoski was definitely dead, and there were sounds coming from within the now revealed bar. He almost didn’t notice the burning green energy that gathered in his fists or burned within his eyes as he stepped faster towards the door, entering the dimly lit room. The one safe place for people like him, and now it was exposed, violated- invaded.

There were people within, and bodies. There was a dark skinned man dressed unsurprisingly in a dark suit and very clearly armed, and there were two light skinned men in unassuming hoodies and caps, looking like standard pedestrians he’d see on the street. They looked up at him as he entered, immediately going for their guns- but they didn’t get the chance. Ezra saw Lauren, and Kyle, slumped over together in a corner, they were whole, unlike Yoski, but lifeless. Ezra threw his ecto-blasts before he’d even fully comprehended their deaths. “You killed them?!” He cried out, he’d intended the words to be angry, but instead they were shocked, still reeling from the scene he’d barely had a chance to process.

One of the plain clothes men ducked behind one of the many upturned tables even as the other went down from a solid blast to the face. The man in the suit raised his gun and fired three times, each managing to hit Ezra in the chest. Overall the entire encounter took maybe three seconds at most, but while the men went to check on their fallen comrade, assuming by the lack of moving, or even breathing, that Ezra was dead, he instead was already beginning to regenerate the wounds to his form and recover from the shocking pain. After a moment of his vision spinning riotously, he simply vanished, turning intangible and invisible.

When he reappeared, leaking neon green blood from the still closing bullet wounds, he was behind the men, and absolutely furious. This time when he threw his energy attacks they caught the men off guard and were thrown to the ground without cover. He threw a few more even after they stopped moving, but managed to repress his emotions enough to stop attacking. Eventually. Even as tears were gathering his eyes, grief pushing past the rage, he knelt down and dug through the suited man’s pockets. He needed to know who had done this, and why.

He managed to get the man’s wallet, but before he could open it someone else charged into the room, a dark skinned woman with her sidearm already drawn and pointed at his head. He threw a bright green burst of energy directly at her face, turning invisible and intangible as she fired her gun. If backup was already arriving he needed to get out, [i]now[/i]. He flew through the roof, managing to get up into the alley above in time for his stress-induced lack of focus to force him to become visible and tangible again. A pain shot through his chest as he leaned against the alley wall for support, and he saw a large hole punctured straight over where his heart would be- an energy weapon, the woman had shot him with an energy weapon.

Luckily he didn’t have a heart, or he’d be dead now. He started running, hearing boots pounding towards him from the subway entrance. Who were these people? How did they get energy weapons on Earth? How’d they find this place? Why were they killing aliens?

It was late, and Coast City was no New york, no Metropolis, but it was very big and very busy. His disguise was ruined, his eyes aglow in the rapidly approaching darkness, leaking more glowing blood from the four holes in his chest, and somehow he’d lost his beanie, revealing stark white hair to every pedestrian he pushed past. He could hear someone running after him, and he threw a glance over his shoulder to see the woman who shot him racing full tilt after him. He waited until he ploughed ahead through a street crossing, not bothering to even look for cars, and then threw an ectoblast over his shoulder, causing the woman to shout and jump out of the way as it landed at her feet. The street shortly erupted in a round of screams as pedestrians scattered in all directions. Ezra used the chaos to run straight through a building and escape to a new street, jumping into the air to get further away. The pedestrians were too distracted by the commotion to look up as he flew quick and fast towards his apartment.

Once he finally set down on the roof of Satomi Towers, he collapsed, clutching a wallet in his hands and breathing hard. He forced himself to focus on the wallet, to calm down, and study the information within. He wasn’t surprised by what he found, all his fears proving true; a symbol, an eagle- [i]how American[/i] - overlaid on an ID. DEO. DEPARTMENT OF EXTRANORMAL OPERATIONS. Agent Hamilton. He sneered, [i]Humans![/i] he thought, a viciousness and resentment attached to their name he hadn’t felt before. [i]The government did this?[/i] Of course they did, there was a reason there were a billion movies painting aliens as the bad guys, why they were always being dissected and hunted down by government agents. Because it was true.

He looked around, feeling… lost, angry… afraid.

He couldn’t do this alone.

[hr]

[b]November 30th, 2019
5:17 AM, PT
Satomi Towers, Coast City[/b]

He called in sick today. Well, he called in something. He’d been very evasive but also very tired and wretched feeling when he’d talked to his manager, something the man seemed to pick up on and let him go without too much fuss.

There was nothing in the news about Yoski, Lauren, or Kyle, or about any aliens at all, which was expected, but even his mad dash through a crowd of pedestrians and blatant use of powers refused to show up. On the TV anyway, in his ‘trending in your area’ feed he managed to find a few conversations had about that ‘glowy green dude that got chased through the street.’ Already those posts were getting random bloggers asking questions and scratching their heads. Mostly there seemed to be a lot of confusion, disbelief, and general indifference. No one seemed to have gotten a video or picture of him, yet anyway, he hoped he hadn’t run in front of a traffic camera or past a store’s security camera, and it had happened very quickly, so it was unlikely to catch anyone’s attention unless they were looking for it. Good.

He’d already redyed his hair, dug up his old pair of hipster square glasses he’d first worn when blending in on this planet, and thoroughly locked himself in his one room apartment where no one could find him. He probably wasn’t going to come out ever again.

A thought occurred to him suddenly; he should get the word out. His phone was already in hand, and he snapped a quick picture of the government agent’s ID. He sent it, and a text message, to Benji. People had to know they were actually being hunted, it wasn’t paranoia anymore, it wasn’t enough to trust no one was looking now, they had to be on their guard.

He lingered a moment on Jessie’s name, [i]Jessie Beedle[/i] just above [i]Benjamin Bello[/i] in his contacts list. After some hesitation, some thought, he sent her a text: [i]won’t make it to gym today, not feeling well[/i] - better than just dropping off the face of the world with no warning, the energetic woman might come looking for him if he wasn’t where she thought he was supposed to be.

Putting it out of his mind for the moment, mostly because he didn’t want to think about how she was human and thus likely to run screaming from him, turn him into the government, or beat him up with a bat- or all three, he refocused on more important things.

He needed his people’s technology, he’d held off because he got comfortable, because the tech was complicated and dangerous… he couldn’t wait anymore. So, heavy hearted but determined, he went to the roof, slipped into the small shed, and began tinkering in the faint green-tinted light of the life pod.