[center][img]http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo63/NMShape/coollogo_com-8436315_zpsd02f9fa5.png[/img][/center] [center][sub]Featuring - Oswald Croll [@DearTrickster][/sub][/center] [hr] Isaac had been experiencing something of a hectic triple-life of late. In his hometown of Cooktown he had slowly been re-organizing to better prpeare himself for handling the crime situation back home. In his home world, he had infiltrated virtually every layer of local police, had swapped his own fingerprint and DNA samples for another to prevent identification from any blood left at scenes incidentally and had a computer at his own house that was generally within a month or two of having up-to-date police files. But all of that had been the result of over a decade of hard work and accrued knowledge of his home town as a vigilante. Now he’d come to a new world and this world’s version of himself was less bothered by the activities of the local authorities. The Isaac Fontaine of this world had a different enemy in mind beyond crime. Now he had technological items that could help, the pre-existing know-how for how to go about achieving the goals he felt he would need to, and mind-blowingly, access to even more money as his family was even wealthier here than on his previous world. But none of that would mean that the hard work to re-organize himself would be any less necessary. Beyond that, he also had to maintain a presence in Cooktown to ensure those with criminal intent wouldn’t forget him. That they couldn’t rest easy. Meanwhile, back in Lost Haven, the student Isaac Fontaine had a number of trials and tribulations of his own. Whilst regular attendance was not really necessary, he still had to check in on his courses. Due to the attack on LHU, the University had offered no-cost deferrment to students who requested it, but also offered other services and support networks to students who felt they could continue. Isaac chose to take the free time and used what he knew of hs courses via the online gateway to get ahead, where he’d be able to periodically throw out an assignment whenever asked since his busy life often didn’t allow him to keep a schedule on such things. The other thing he was confronted by was a new Dean. The previous Dean who asked him to coach an LHU rugby team was viciously murdered in the Hounds attack and was replaced by a new one. One who had not been debriefed and constantly pumped by a certain rugby-loving economics student about the low-cost, high-visibility gains that having a successful rugby team could have with foreign students - foreign students from countries that also made up a large proportion of the nationalities which visited as “meta-tourists”; people who would put Lost Haven on their itinerary with the express hope of catching a glimpse of an Icon, Iron Knight, Blacklight, or even perhaps the newest Aquilifer. As such, not only could he understand why Isaac had been asked to coach a rugby team at all. Let alone now, when the school didn’t even have a football team anymore after the events caused by the Nightmare attack. Isaac wasn’t particularly bothered - all things being equal, he’d rather not have the time-sink and added responsibility - perhaps a greater sign that the universe was done with Isaac in this regard. But the Dean viewed him as someone who had taken advantage of the previous Dean’s naivete, and clearly didn’t care for him. Their relationship really not being helped by the fact that when called into his office, Isaac had a six pack of beer in tow and proceeded to drink them successively whilst the Dean told him in full detail just how unnecessary he felt the whole thing to be. Not wanting to breach any open-beverage rules that may exist on campus, Isaac finished the entire six pack in his office, only downing the last one after offering it to a mid-rant Dean. “Look, at the end of the day, I think it’s entirely up to you… But I think you might be making some hard-working kids very disappointed... Cheers!” As for the Vigilante’s activities within Lost Haven, he’d been busying himself with loose threads not only from the Hounds attack and the fall of S.T.R.I.K.E, but also nagging threads of the Pax Metahumana, and Demon Invasions in Lost Haven. He had invested in teacher’s boards that could take full scans to make note-taking easier for students back in his Cooktown home. One he was working on now featured all the “players” in Lost Haven’s circuit, with the board split between “O” for Old people he was familiar with and “N” for those New people he was only aware of existing in this world. Straddling the line was this world’s Blacklight. He pulled a recently developed photograph down from a piece of string where it had been drip-dried and placed it on the board, writing “Alchemists x 2” with a big circle around it. “Red Witch” was written close by with a string connecting the two. [hr] [b]Time: Late Evening, Night of the Attack on the Hounds’ Base Location: HoH HQ - Docks, Lost Haven[/b] Frustratingly patting at the wet handprints on his jacket the elderly man’s brow was furrowed with confusion, even with his alchemical applications to remove it. It stayed regardless. He fluttered his jacket of the bits of dust from the Hounds operative he had taken care of, the dust motes swirled in his hand adding the collective chaos of carbon that surrounded his staff. He barely registered what the masked fighter had said. "[b]Great... Here I was thinking I'm protecting a decrepit monkey skeleton in a cloak from a bunch of bigoted pricks with guns. Now I'm protecting a bunch of bigoted pricks with guns from a decrepit monkey skeleton…[/b]” In a heavily germanic accent Oswald Croll asked, “I beg your pardon young man? I am neither skeletal or a monkey.” Oswald peeked past Vigilante, no sight of his kin nor her friend. He may have followed exactly the wrong person to this base. “I thought I had bet on the correct horse but it seems my kin is nowhere in sight. Very sorry to trouble you, please be careful of those bombs.” He said, sticking out his hand to shake. “I am not here to fight these men and I must excuse myself.” The Vigilante stood with his hands out soaking water onto the spillway’s cement. [b]“Right.”[/b] He said, taking in the magic man in all of his ridiculity. [b]“I have lost entirely too much blood to be dealing with this kind of bullshit right now.”[/b] Staff. Long clothes. Magic. Kin. Isaac connected the dots quickly enough. [b]“I think I know where your… ugh… ‘kin’ might be.”[/b] Isaac said through his voice modulator, wincing at the sound of such an awkward worrd. [b]“She’s likely ahead of us. It’s all the same one big complex, and we’re taking care of the exits as we go and meeting up in the middle. I’ll take you there, but I have two rules. One: Stop killing other people, these lunatics have been fighting a public war saying that people like you are dangerous because of the exact god damn thing you just did. I’d rather we make a clean sweep on this and beat them both physically and on message… especially when we’re this close and risked this much. And Rule two: Try not to get yourself killed. Rule two is optional.”[/b] [hr] It was the strange hooded man in the cloak from the night when they took down the Hounds’ base. His Omni-tool could snap up to six photographs on regular old film stored within the incredibly useful device. He had no images of the “kin” of which he’d spoken about, but Isaac felt the need to snap a quick one of this more mysterious one. The pair cut a brief swathe through a few waves of fleeing Hounds until the Vigilante had realised he was alone. The old man had displaced the atoms in a wall and reformed the wall seamlessly again behind him, presumably in search of his kin. Magic and Metahumans. Wizards and Wonders. And Isaac Fontaine was once again in the middle of it all. “Not the only human in the middle of it all though.” He thought to himself as he tapped an arrow with an orange nock and fletchings he had hanging on the “N” side of the board. The Archer. Last he saw she was banged up. Likely not just new to him, but new to the life itself. He pulled the arrow down and turned it over in his hands whilst pondering the big question. How much should he get involved? He remembered himself when he was just starting out over a decade ago. A stupid kid bouncing around relying far too much on dumb luck as he started out, how easily he could have wound up dead or in jail. [b]“Ah shit…”[/b] He said audibly to himself, as he hung the arrow back up. He had his answer. He pulled the board away, along with the board for Hounds/S.T.R.I.K.E connections and left open the Pax Metahumana board. The singular image that had become his obsession had been blown up to half the size of the board so he could see it clearly. He knew the man in the photo, he’d seen him before and he just couldn’t place him. It was driving him barmy. He was starting to worry he might have to out-source and start questioning people with the photo. Isaac pulled out a pen and started on a list of people to question. People who first and foremost he knew could be trusted. He couldn’t have ripples leading back to this man, he couldn’t have people looking to take matters into their own hands, and people he felt would trust Isaac to handle the situation without asking further questions themselves. It was a short list. A name with a circle around it and one with questionmarks after it. [h1]1. Icon 2. Gunny ???[/h1] All the capes, cowls and cunning conjurors he knew and this list spoke volumes. Two people. And even then he was reaching, because these weren’t his own world’s versions of these people. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He added a weird item to his shopping list. Something cheap he had back home, but hadn’t yet picked up here, and went to the closet to prepare for the night.